Match Bar & Grill

Rating: 12.5/ 20

I'M SITTING here, via the wonders of digital music file management and a new computer I haven't mastered, gently swaying left and right as I type. The soundtrack to my morning is from artist/band/machine/supergroup/all of the above (I have no idea) "Willis". Never heard of 'em until Wednesday night. Now they're on my computer doing a superb, jazzy cover of Cameo's 1980s funk hit Word Up.

I heard it and had to have it. And I heard it at Match, the new colonial outpost of a British bar empire that includes places named Milk & Honey in London, The Clubhouse in Chamonix and The East Room in a slightly less glamorous place called Shoreditch. These are bars where the price of a round of drinks means the words "what'll you have?" are unlikely to ever leave my lips. But if they all play music as brilliant as Match, I could sit there on a solitary, selfish pint for hours and not get bored.

As it happens, my date at Match is a friend whose girlish enthusiasm for post-1980 pop exceeds even my own, and as the familiar and unfamiliar keep rolling across the aural landscape, we are increasingly pigs in poo. A staffer at this first-level, corner site of the QV complex happily obliges with a name for the artist in question. It's the kind of enthusiastic, perky attitude that pervades this new kind of bar/cafe/restaurant/club.

And as it turns out, the music and can-do staff, plus a novel approach to wines by the glass, are the things that stay with you most post-Match.

As a restaurant customer, anyway, and one who might be labelled of The RocKwiz Generation, I'm probably much older than Match's target audience of Gen X and Y and XTC.

Sorry, showing my age.

Match has a big, loungey bar area that looks a bit like Brunswick Street. Weathered sofas and the like, a cool timber-lined balcony overlooking Swanston Street and the State Library forecourt, and a couple of dining zones defined by high-backed brown leather banquettes that must have cost a fortune.

Some of the graffiti art (inside) and concert posters on the stairwell look inspired by Curtin House, home to Cookie et al, just down the street.

The lighting is low, but clever; the table experience conforms to all the de rigueur modes. No table cloths; a sharing-style menu of dishes breaking with conventional portions; lots of timber presentation boards; and in deference to smaller portions, affordable prices, too.

First, a word about wine.

Match offers a large selection by the glass, and it is able to do so, it argues, by employing a special vending machine that charges open bottles with an inert gas that it claims keeps them in good condition. Most of those wines by the glass are inside this flash contraption that tries to make you feel better about the concept of self-service.

The wines dispensed by the electronic sommelier are available in three pour sizes, as well as, naturally, the full bottle.

Stick the card in the slot, press the button, et voila. The card is charged and so is your glass. Fancy 30ml of Crawford River riesling? That'll be $4, thanks. Go for the full glass and you've just spent $15.

It's certainly novel. And it seems to work in terms of "freshness", too; we tried wine from old and new bottles and couldn't pick the difference. It's almost certainly the only restaurant in the world you can buy Penfolds 2003 Grange by the glass from a machine. And at $140 per 150ml pour, you'd be hoping the flesh and bones sommelier produced a more serious glass than those furnished the rest of us.

Apparently, you can get staff to do it for you, and at these prices, they probably should. Again, Match will be hoping the system - like the music - appeals to wine drinkers younger than me. Gen X wine pin-up lad Matt Skinner is behind the almost entirely current-release selection, and it's a worthy collection.

Back at your table, there is food to go with your wine of choice. It's mostly Mediterranean, with the usual Italian/Spanish overtures from a carte that adopts unconventional categories ("larder", "salad", "seafood", "grill", "pasta and rice"). There is also a "word bin" for all the chefy menu-ese that might have been littered throughout the page, but isn't. It would be a good place not to have misspelled Valhrona.

Overall, however, while the food probably works in a bar context, it lacks flair and impact as a dining room offer.

Oysters ($3.50) come splashed with a red wine vinegar/shallot dressing but are detached from their shells and have very little natural juice or verve. I did not get the impression they'd been opened to order.

A large "charcuteria" board ($25) is one-dimensional: thin-sliced Serrano ham, an emasculated, personality-free chorizo - thinly sliced - and another sliced, air-dried ham product sit alongside a white bean and pork concoction a bit like rillettes, with crisp bread wafers, cornichons and those tasteless, mushy things called palm hearts. There's nothing wrong with it.

Crostini (three, $14) topped with a ceviche-like tuna tartare, with avocado, lime, chopped herbs and celery heart with a dash of mild chilli, is probably the best thing we saw. Lively, well seasoned (we didn't use the irony-laden unlabelled supermarket-shelf disposable plastic grinders at all) and built from fine fish.

But with two people doing the sharing thing, why three?

A linguine ($16/22) with blue swimmer crab, baby spinach and lots of lemon is plain insipid and slightly wet. Was the crab meat frozen? There is no flavour "spine" to the dish built with good olive oil, garlic, chilli and white wine; it's oily, but without good oil flavour or power.

A "sirloin" - or striploin as the meat industry would prefer it labelled - steak ($30) is a whole lot better: good meat, grilled correctly to order, with warm roasted kipfler potato halves dressed with a nutty/crunchy salsa verde, olive oil and a lemon cheek. A "superfood salad" ($13/$18) is a collection of things good for you (seeds and nuts) jumbled with feta, cucumber and broccolini, and it's fine, too.

The dessert list is brief. Very. A wedge of pleasing lemon curd tart with a brulee crust and whipped cream ($9); a "chocolate something" (it was a mousse); and muscat/date ice cream at $3 per scoop. Not a lot of muscats or dates died for this particular batch.

And in the wash-up, you'd have to conclude that little was actually poor; it's just that as a restaurant, the same kind of money will take you so much further elsewhere. The music, however, is another matter. Some will hate Porno for Pyros with their dinner, but it moved me.

Score: 1-9: Unacceptable. 10-11: Just OK, some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: Outstanding. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Please note all information in this review is correct at time of printing. Restaurant menus, staff and locations change over time.