Little Hunter

Bread will tell you a whole lot about a restaurant. It will tell you its priorities and care factor. On rare occasions it will even telegraph an entire ethos, a la Little Hunter's tearable white loaf that arrives at the table hot from the oven, bristling with rosemary, cheddar soldered to the crust and chicken skin butter playing sidekick. Say what? Yep: crisp bits of chicken skin whipped into equal parts butter and chicken fat. Hang the cholesterol count, this has cult status written all over it.

I like the super-glycemic bread, but find it a touch confusing that the chief backer of Little Hunter is Pete Evans, TV chef-turned-health activist. Chicken skin butter to a health nut is like nuclear waste to a greenie, so it makes sense that the chef heading this modern grill-house is a Yank, Gavin Baker, whose first stint Down Under is the result of crossing paths with Evans some time ago on the chef circuit. His eclectic CV includes a couple of years as sous chef at The Fat Duck, so it's not exactly clear if he's here for a long time or a good time.

The ''foreseeable future'' will do for now, although there are a couple of reasons it would be a good thing if he chose to stick around a while. First, there's little in the way of stale rhetoric about provenance - he says it's a given that the meat is raised the right way. Organic, free-range, etc. I like that. Second, the North Carolina native adds a frisson of authenticity to the Americana slant that's been trending here for a while without finding any real epicentre. Americana is as broad as the country that spawned it, but it certainly doesn't cut corners to say it's all about meat and fat doing ungodly things to each other.

So you find the discretely marked stairs off Little Collins and head down a couple of flights to a bunker that doesn't stray too far from the Melbourne faux-industrial men's club template. One wall is devoted to a portrait of a sad-eyed cow; a memento mori to all passing bovines that no matter how ethically and respectfully they might be treated in life, the dinner table is their final destination.

Little Hunter opened only last month and the staff are still finding their sea legs. They certainly have their work cut out for them trying to fit share plates on the small, closely spaced tables.

There's been plenty of pork crackling around town recently, but have you seen it teamed with cheddar cheese? Fried into gossamer puffiness, they're the porcine answer to the prawn cracker, but I'm afraid they don't get much beyond novelty value for me: too haute greasy spoon. But the breakout dish is a rather wonderful example of excess: sliver-thin buttery toast, chicken liver parfait and raw wagyu with classic tartare seasoning. It's counter-intuitively elegant. Cured kingfish heads in a different direction in the company of a very savoury bay leaf oil and a refreshing brace of fish roe - a mixture of salmon and the smaller, grittier tobiko (flying fish), seasoned with white soy and mirin.

Mains are distinguished by delivery that's unponcy and ungarnished. There might be a drop in the wow factor but the underpinnings are sound thanks to excellent produce and the kitchen's latest-generation charcoal grills and ovens that add their own smoky lick of personality to everything they touch.

Anyway, serving a rib eye (Robbins Island, Tasmanian, wagyu, off the bone) with bone marrow and beef fat butter doesn't really leave a person wondering where a restaurant stands on certain issues. It's a beautiful piece of meat moderated through a prism of fat. You'll need one of their diner-style sides: fries dusted with dehydrated onion powder and a tangy cocktail sauce, or grits and herb butter. Chicken gets a whole lot of technique thrown at it to be a very good example of what chicken used to taste like. The skin is burnished into a salty crust thanks to fresh turmeric, coriander, garlic and fennel seeds, and there's nothing of the usual tired filler - you get some raw cucumber, house-made sour cream, and a lemon for squeezing pre-revved with a hearty sprinkling of cracked pepper. It's a sound aesthetic.

Big flavours continue through to desserts, where a wickedly dark orb of unsweetened liquorice ice-cream refuses to be reined in by its support cast (milk ''crumbs'', candied orange peel, bee pollen). Shy and retiring isn't really on the Little Hunter menu. Diner values for restaurant food - that's my new definition of Americana. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

THE LOW-DOWN
The best bit Fat is flavour
The worst bit Eight fries cost $6
Go-to dish Beef on toast, $15
Wine list A global list that highlights styles over regions. Some good price points.
Vegetarian One starter
Service Fair
Value Mostly OK
Noise A subterranean hubbub
Wheelchairs Yes
Parking Street or paid

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.