Meat Fish Wine

Who wants steak? Hopefully, everybody. It's looking a lot like 1988 out there right now. You want your beef LA-style? They're doing that at Dutchess, the new squillion-dollar lounge above the Duke of Wellington, where models DJ  at the weekends and dry-aged cuts come with foie gras and lobster. Entrecote in South Yarra (and coming soon, the city) is doing Parisian steak frites with champagne and pomp in a garden. Representing New York/Texas is Carlton's all-new good-times Longhorn Saloon. And here in the QV arcade there's Meat Fish Wine, the shiny new offering by the Apple and Pears Restaurant Group (Burma Lane, Red Spice Road) delivering, well, exactly that.

This is the sort of polished, box-ticking restaurant you expect to find in a casino. Beyond the sliding glass door, a tunnel of glimmering arches gives the impression you're entering through the ribcage of one of the things you're about to eat. There's a long, glitzy bar to the right, and beyond, an ink-dark room of rawhide chairs and twinkling lights suspended in bronze mesh tubes. Drapes block out light from the outside world and at the heart of the room is a marble platform rippling with water. You half expect to find people playing mahjong in the loos.

The crew is equally decorated. General manager Scott Horn spent three years atthe Royal Mail in Dunkeld. Head chef Malcolm Wright has come across from the kitchen at Maha. Wright has left the Maltese flavours behind here. Instead, you may start with an oyster in a coconut water, kaffir and lime juice shooter – a mod-retro collision that works  better than anyone  at our table expects. The same can't be said for the octopus carpaccio. The shaved sheets of tentacles-turned-terrine, which look like crazy eye puzzles, are  shouted down by bossy orange zest, bitter radicchio, candied walnuts and gorgonzola.The beef in our tartare, mounted with a 62-degree poached egg, has been similarly silenced by truffle oil, which strikes from 10paces, and lattice chips so salty that we leave them on the plate.

But have you  come to a place called Meat Fish Wine for entrees? I'd guess you have come for large pieces of protein cooked with minimum intervention, served with big chips and bold booze. On that front you're safe. The char-grilled chicken is a juicy bird counterbalanced by preserved lemon. A whole snapper is pan-fried and punched awake with salsa verde.  As for the steak, all you want to know is whether the beef is good (it is: overachieving full-blooded wagyu steaks, and pasture-fed beef of Hopkins River, Ballan and Victoria Farms pedigree); how big the serves are (200 grams up to a 1.4-kilogram dry-aged monster); and if they cook it right (they do: charred and pink in the right places). Meat Fish Wine wins points for a pretty, piquant rendition of baby beet and goat's cheese salad, fluffy, thick hand-cut chips and gnocchi-like cheesy chestnut dumplings that have been fried off with black fungus, sage and roasted chestnuts.

It also scores for wines spanning the past two decades of winemaking in the Jura, Austria and Western Australia, all poured by ex-Nobu sommelier Sophie Johnston, with lots of flexibility by the glass. It would be even better if they sampled at the table, because the yeasty funk of, say, the Olivier Tricon bourgogne blanc isn't for everyone.The same could be said for the incongruous music, which could be Triple J's Hottest 100 circa 2011, and the prices. Steaks start at $40, without sides. Sydney rock oysters (natural, not the shooters) are $5 a pop and that snapper is $42. It's  one to file under big-spend, inner-city business-deal joint. If that's the case, request one of the central tables. At the outer two-tops, duos look awkward side by side on the banquettes.

It's not easy to rally excitement for a restaurant with a name that sounds computer-generated and an online blurb promising "ingredient-focused cooking". It might speak less of blood, sweat and tears than of careful boardroom decisions, but that business-minded approach has its perks. It's a luxe, central place where you can get a decent fish, steak and glass of wine. That may not win you over hook, line and sinker, but sometimes, it's enough.

THE LOWDOWN
Pro tip They do a two-course express lunch for $45
Status Calm and collected
Go-to dish Sher wagyu rostbiff

How we score
Of 20 points, 10 are awarded for food, five for service, three for ambience, two for wow factor.  
12 Reasonable 13 Solid and satisfactory 14 Good 15 Very good 16 Seriously good 17 Great 18 Excellent 19 Outstanding 20 The best of the best