Melbourne Patron

Kisumé Japanese Restaurant The new fine-dining venture on Flinders Lane by the Lucas Group Any Melburnian foodie worth their salt is aware of the Lucas Group and its portfolio of very successful restaurants: Chin Chin , a loud hall of colourful South-East Asian food and cocktails on Flinders Lane that still attracts queues of several hours' wait, some six years after its opening Hawker Hall , a similar style venue to Chin Chin but on South Yarra's Chapel Street and with more of a focus on street food, that once infamously proffered a wait time equal to a return drive to Torquay with a beer stop in the middle Baby Pizza , quiet stalwart of the group, churning out delectable, fresh Italian food on Church Street, and  Kong , offering Japanese-Korean BBQ fusion also on Church Street, and perhaps the most casual venue of the lot.  And if you have read any of my posts before, you will know that I am utterly fed up with the 'Americana' craze, whereby every...

Is it, though? So normal it's super normal? I think maybe not. There are a lot of 'normal' things at Supernormal (180 Flinders Lane, Melbourne) - you go in, get a table (if you're lucky), order food, eat it at said table. But there are a few things that set this restaurant apart. Kitchen behind the bar One is size. Supernormal is quite big for a Melbourne CBD restaurant. There are different sections: a looooong bar (behind which sits the kitchen, and which pretty much runs the length of the restaurant), a line of booth-style tables, a couple of walls hosting tables with bench seating, and stand-alone tables in the middle. Bench seating tables and random display flowers and bottles It also has a very high ceiling, which makes the interior feel very spacious and airy. Hard surfaces everywhere do echo the noisy chatter from so many covers, but the space above all the heads helps absorb it. Stand-alone tables in the middle and hi Another is ...