Eighty One

The entrance to Eighty One comes with a fashion directive: no work gear, thongs or singlets. It's a step up from ''No shirt, no shoes, no service'' but still gives a moment's pause to consider … well, all sorts of things, including the relationship between customers and management. As luck would have it I left the fluoro safety vest at home, so onwards we go into the land of smart casual, whose fluid parameters extend from bearded young men in happy pants to glammed-up senior citizens.

Broad territory, you might say, which gives rise to further speculation: is the crowd so diverse because of Eighty One's mixed bag of a menu, or is the menu the practical approach to such a diverse crowd? It's a chicken-or-the-egg question that will have to remain unanswered among the menu's giddy whirl of Thai crab crackers, Mexican duck mole, Greek saganaki, Japanese mayo and the Middle Eastern spice mix zaatar.

Do I have a problem with that? No, not necessarily, although I do believe any chef would do well to figure out what she/he is good at, and stick to it. It's much harder to impress across a wide spectrum; much easier to charm within sensibly chosen boundaries.

The tapas (their description) includes fried brisket fingers - like fish fingers, only wagyu - with a salty ''Japanese soy mayo''. There's duck mole on the entrees list - new-wave Mexican reaches Berwick. The duck, cooked down into a pleasant mulch humming with chipotle, comes in a ramekin alongside a stack of over-warmed cornflour tortillas, a zesty little red-onion/tomato/parsley salad and a slurry of lemon-accented avocado that's been emulsified with too much olive oil.

Another tapas/entree of garlic and chilli prawn tails - 10 of them, frozen rather than fresh - arrive in their cooking pan without a hint of tasty caramelisation. There's a good amount of chilli in there, lemon zest too, but they've been liberally splashed with a curious, sweet ''green tea liqueur''. Better-quality seafood, and less of it, would be a good place to start.

Aesthetically speaking, Eighty One embodies its city/rural-fringe location.

The main room features extravagantly tasselled red light fittings dangling from the nosebleed-high timber ceiling supported by grand beams.

A fire crackles in the grate. It feels right, although at the rear of the former blacksmith, the restaurant occupies a different time zone altogether. It's carpeted, quiet and clinical, with violet strip lighting introducing shades of the CSI lab. We beat a strategic retreat back to the banquette seating along the main drag with a view of the open-ish kitchen. It's a much nicer place to be.

Tables are set with pre-ground salt and pepper, tea lights, and a plastic stand advertising something called a ''wine bong''. Not tonight, thanks, I'm driving. There's a good choice by the glass from a simple and sensible list, locally focused and with kind mark-ups.

There's more kindness with the mightily proportioned mains. Three venison schnitzels are stacked like dominoes on top of a stewy combo of wilted spinach, black-eyed beans and smoky shreds of bacon. A creamy pine-nut sauce has soaked up the flavour of mushrooms roasted in sherry and vinegar. It makes for a butch bit of cold-weather eating.

Paella is fraught with danger - even the Iberian places struggle to get that authentic Valencian crust - so having the menu addendum ''our way'' is a sneaky escape hatch. It's very wet and intensely lemony, with slices of mild chorizo, chicken and prawns decorated with colourful outbreaks of peppers and peas. It'll do so long as you're not Spanish but, if you are, ni se te ocurra.

Desserts exhibit the modern chef's fondness for biscuit crumbs - the silty crunch makes sense with a glass-set, extremely dense layered chocolate concoction, less so mixed with crushed pine nuts on a plate of lifeless poached red stone fruit topped by blobs of wet, grainy ricotta.

I'd like to say service embodies the ideal of the local but it's a bit like a recurring solar eclipse: one minute warm and welcoming, the next dark and indifferent, as though they're trying to work out if you pass the dress-code muster. Flashes of potential spark and fade.

Eighty One does a lot of things, yet it does none of them particularly well.

THE LOW-DOWN
The best bit Fireside drinking
The worst bit A lack of focus
Go-to dish Duck mole, $16
Wine list Sensible list of Victorian drops leaning towards the local; a good selection by the glass
Vegetarian One entree, one main
Dietary GF well catered for
Bookings Yes
Service Patchy
Noise Easy
Value Good
Parking Street

Twitter: @LarissaDubecki

How we score
Of 20 points, 10 are awarded for food, five for service, three for ambience, two for wow factor.

12 Reasonable 13 Good if not great 14 Solid and enjoyable 15 Very good 16 Capable of greatness 17 Special 18 Exceptional 19 Extraordinary 20 Perfection

Restaurants are reviewed again for The Age Good Food Guide and scores may vary.