Gimlet, Melbourne Review: a meal I didn’t want to end
By John Lethlean, May 8th 2021
The Weekend Australian Magazine
It’s a mild April night in Melbourne and people flow from the Forum’s comedy gig like a viscous river filling every nook and cranny of nearby Flinders Lane. The masks are gone, the mood beyond buoyant. After some 15 weeks of hard lockdown, the taps have been opened.
And inside Gimlet, at the corner of Russell Street and Flinders Lane, there is a sense of rollicking abandon, a palpable thrill at being back inside a smart restaurant and having a bloody great time.
Melbourne’s back.
Yes, the CBD’s still quiet by day, but by night the genie’s out of the bottle – and Gimlet, a new-ish Andrew McConnell restaurant, is epicentre of all that pent-up desire to eat, drink, laugh and be reminded the glass is actually half full after all.
I missed the pre-launch hype and somehow arrived anticipating gentle, mannered elegance. It’s elegant, all right, but it’s a party too. Just stepping inside makes you feel good, feel some magic.
It’s something to do with the way they’ve taken a classic old shell, put a Manhattan-louche sitaround bar at the centre, surrounded it with Parisian booths and then built a mezzanine dining tier around all that to watch the best show in town. Gimlet’s metropolitan, chic, but with its own New World freshness.
It’s something to do with staff – superb staff, actually – who are clearly delighted to be back on the floor, doing their thing in the Melbourne restaurant of the moment. It’s something to do with the drinks – hard to refuse the delicious Gimlet gimlet – and a wine waiter who happens to be Australia’s best, Leanne Altmann. OK, she’s “beverage director” for the whole group (of seven restaurants) but the kick she gets out of the human side of the job is infectious. It’s the utter completeness of everything, from the crockery to the linen, the uniforms to the music, the fit-out and the finish. It’s all done ridiculously properly.
And of course it has a lot to do with the food, which shows that, post-Covid, quality and simplicity with familiar roots is plat du jour. The era of waiters pointing humourlessly at endless elements on your plate? Over. Here’s to delicious food that just says, “Eat me”.
During autumn there’s cured rainbow trout – decent, thick pieces, great fish – with mustard dressed cucumber batons, a few dressed leaves and cresses and fresh grated horseradish. Perfect with Baker Bleu bread, Australia’s best.
And a fresh, sexy salade Lyonnaise jumbles sublime, hot-smoked chunks of bacon with lightly dressed frisée and chervil, cornichons, pickled baby onions and a smoked, soft-boiled egg. Oh, and some crumbed/fried pig’s ear with a slice of Lyonnaise sausage. A tarragon emulsion underpins it. It’s a nose-to-tail extravaganza, executed superbly.
A provenance-free – how the worm has turned – T-bone steak is grilled/roasted in the wood oven and served with grilled/pickled/parsley-dressed pine mushrooms; it is vast, expensive ($130) and quite possibly the best-flavoured and textured beef I’ve ever eaten. It’s served very well rested. The condiments are bearnaise, French mustard and horseradish cream. A truly exceptional piece of beef, but you’ll probably need to accessorise (potatoes, salad, that sort of thing).
Desserts are similarly classic and approachable: a baked choux “puff” filled with honeycomb comes with a glorious, glossy hot chocolate sauce; poached quince in its own syrup gets a surprising but outrageously successful flavour partner in whipped sesame cream and crisp sesame filo.
It’s a meal I didn’t want to end.
For a proper night out, or a long lunch, or simply a restaurant experience that totally rewards surrender, and optimism, Gimlet joins the very small coterie of my favourite restaurants, anywhere. It is McConnell’s most convincing statement as a restaurateur yet, and I’ve only been once. We’ll sort that.
