Lynch's Restaurant

Melbourne doesn't get many earthquakes but when the auction board was hoisted up at Lynch's three weeks ago you could feel a shudder that began in South Yarra and rumbled all the way east along Toorak Road. For 30 years, the moneyed have come to be mornayed here. They've wrangled high-stakes marriages while sawing into top-class steaks. They've dropped countless gossip bombs over bombes Alaska. Year after year, Lynch's has been a reliable, clubby, velveteen warren, much loved by all manner of Toorak types. It's a restaurant like no other in Melbourne.

Lynch's goes under the hammer on September 20 but will continue trading until Christmas. That gives us four months to snare a linen-draped table and enjoy octogenarian restaurateur Paul Lynch's version of old-school European hotel hospitality. Service is cheerfully deferential, as though offered by a butler of a decade's employ, and the silverware, decanters and champagne buckets are in a permanent outsparkling contest. But it's not a stuck-up place. The opulent clutter, soft furnishings and preponderance of regular clientele give it a homely feel, so long as home is a manse with fireplaces in every room and walls crowded with oils.

The food here is far from radical but it's not fuddy-duddy either. The underlying sensibility is French, even though many dishes sound Italian. So, you get prawn and crab tortellini but a sauce of gentle crab bisque; it's an understated, pleasing dish. Average osso buco is presented like a joint of meat rather than the Italian-style collapsed stew, while creamy Jerusalem artichoke soup is pure veloute. Lamb rack is tender and tasty but it's roasted to well-done: it seems pink bits are quarantined to the nude paintings up above. Signature dishes include fish 'n' chips, corned beef and prawns Lynch, a really horrible-sounding gratin of prawn meat, mango and curry sauce and cheese. Astonishingly, it works, in a sappy, retro way. Desserts are great, especially the bombe Alaska: it's slightly singed and completely decadent.

You don't need to be Somebody to dine at Lynch's, though celebrities are especially welcomed. A hero wall that rises with the staircase is crowded with a who's who and who-the-hell's-that stretching back to the 1970s. Down on the dining floor, it's a mix of coiffed girls' nights, family celebrations and suity pow-wows. Older people are well-represented. It's hard not to wonder where these folk will dine come 2008. The Botanical, just up the street, but decades and decibels distant, hardly beckons. At the other end of the age spectrum, Lynch's is still the baby-banning bastion that refused entry to a couple and their infant in 1992 and ended up in court. The rule still holds: if you're under 12, eat with the babysitter. As someone whose miniature munchers have annoyed fellow diners all over town, I have no problem with the policy. In fact, I've taken home one of Lynch's Baby-Free Zone postcards and I'll be Blu Tacking it to my forehead next time my little ones start a ruckus.

At a time when many Melbourne restaurants seem to consider concrete, ill-judged banquettes and dukkah compulsory, it's sad to wave goodbye to somewhere that's truly individual. Many will want to light a candle for the place - just don't do it at the restaurant. Candlelit hosannas and hairspray do not make for a happy ending.