Melbourne Patron

Want Melbourne Patron blog posts delivered straight to your inbox? Click the "Subscribe" button at the top of this page and follow the simple instructions. Magic! Hana Restaurant A seafood tribute to Hawaii in Melbourne - with cocktails  One day in the middle of Melbourne winter, I went looking for Hairy Canary. I remembered a long, dark venue with cocktails, somewhere on Lt Collins. In its place, I found Hana (212 Lt Collins Street, Melbourne), a new restaurant I'd read about but hadn't realised it had replaced the long-standing Canary. I was intrigued, because HALLELUJAH, here was a new restaurant in Melbourne that was NOT yet another fried/slow-cooked/smoked/overdone tribute to Americana. Though technically still American, Hana celebrates and proffers the exotic flavours of Hawaii. Which basically means a lot of fish. Which is good. Because fish is good for you. And delicious. So anyway, cut forward a few weeks to when my equally-foodie-friend is...

As I was moving out of the area, I made a few nostalgic brunch visits to one of my favourite cafes, Three Bags Full (60 Nicholson Street, Abbotsford). It was on one of these visits that I picked up a postcard advertising French dinners at the very same venue. Two of the cafe's chefs, Nicolas Toll é  and Fabien Laville (better known as Nico and Fab), are French expats who came up with the clever idea to use the cafe's space by night to stage dinners showcasing their talents as chefs with French-inspired dishes. Two handsome young French men cooking me food with the novelty of a setting I only knew by day? Sold! It turned out to be a girls' dinner on Thursday 11 December 2014. Four of us met at 8pm (sadly the only booking time left - we were quite starving on arrival! luckily there was bread) among the quiet hum of chatter and clinking glassware. There were no great changes in the cafe's layout, however the tables were laid with floral fabric placemats, ...

*This venue is now closed*  I'd been looking forward to this dinner for a long time - not only for the company, but also because I was keen to try Mercy Bar + Eatery (31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne), formerly known as Virginia Plain (see my previous blog post here ). PINK ! In its former state, I'd tried the degustation with matching wines and been quite impressed. Word on the street was that, although Mercy Bar is still run by the same crew (owned by Marco Santucci, with Andy Harmer as chef and Mat Beyer running front-of-house), it was revamping in response to what the people wanted: a more casual eatery, with a 'less austere' ambience. It's still a great venue, but I'm not sure it has hit its mark just yet. Sure, it's a little more colourful, with street-style art by Steve Cross and touches of bright neon lighting, but I was expecting more bar, less eatery - well, less 'restaurant' style eatery, anyway. I was kinda disappointed to ...

Birthday celebration no. 2 came in the form of a "surprise" evening organised by one of my dear friends. She picked me up from home and we trammed it into le city, alighting at the promising Paris end of Collins Street, and landing at the foot of the infamous 101 Collins building. (I'm not sure if this building is infamous due to some titillating history, its art, architecture and design, or merely because the nearest tram stop is named after its address. In trying to find this out, it turns out the building has its very own website and Wikipedia entry , neither of which sheds much light on the matter.) Walk through the spacious, immaculate foyer, past a gazillion banks of elevators, and you will find, neatly tucked in one corner, The Italian . No, this is (sadly) not a tall, dark, handsome man with an alluring accent, wandering eyes and curly hair, but its restaurant equivalent - though maybe without the wandering eyes. The Italian is generally regarded as a prestig...