Newmarket Hotel

WELCOME to the new St Kilda. Expensive apartments are shooting up on Inkerman Street like mushrooms after rain, prostitutes are outnumbered by Pilates instructors and the former home of high-cultural event Tits and Schnitz is a bona fide gastro pub.

Another collaboration between pub maven Julian Gerner, consultant chef Paul Wilson and designers Six Degrees — the Tex, Don and Charlie of Melbourne's thumpingly resurgent gastro-pub scene — the Newmarket is a predictable triumph of style and substance.

Twinned with the Royal Saxon, crossed with the restless spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright and bearing a familial resemblance to the Albert Park, it's another place with cunningly fluid boundaries between outside and inside. The materials used are enticingly tactile and sensibly durable. You get the feeling the place could be hosed clean if the Friday night crowd got out of hand.

The design goes by the mantra of sticking to a good thing but this upscale pub group also hangs its shingle on difference. That means Wilson has the toughest job.
Luckily, he's also the least formulaic of the triumvirate. This time around, he's sniffed the wind and headed south of the border.

Hispanic food is hotter than a jalapeno and the Newmarket has jumped on board this trend while it's still new enough to be considered novel. There's a strong Mexican presence but its inspiration plunders the corners of the Spanish-speaking world, including the southern US.

Its brilliantly sunny disposition has helped make it the city's venue of the summer.

You could be perfectly happy ploughing through the shallow end of the menu — a really pleasing collection of starters that encourages over-ordering. It's split evenly into Iberian tapas and Latin street food (tacos, mostly), with the obligatory cured meats riding shotgun.

Baccala ($14) bucks its creamed ubiquity — firm, chewy and almost calamari-like chunks in batter, with onion rings and baby zucchini flowers on a squid-ink emulsion. It needs salt but it's a great dish, emblematic of the way Wilson has built a very successful career thinking on the outskirts of the square.

Wood-barbecued octopus ($14) — their preferred method of cooking protein — is tender and memorable with pimientos de Padron (the Russian roulette green peppers of potentially extreme spiciness).

And fans of Wilson's designer prawn cocktails at the Albert Park Hotel and Middle Park Hotel ought to try his brilliant Southern California version ($14), with a chipotle chilli kick cooled by bits of watermelon and a scattering of crushed tacos adding crunch.

A soft taco ($14) with fried Balmain bugs is the season in one hand: assertive heat, citrus notes, fresh herbs and smoky chilli flavours. Or sticky and chewy pork carnitas, the sweetness diluted by pickled pineapple salsa. Or prawns and green mango with jicama ($15). Unlike the children, it's easy to love them all equally.

I would probably leave the cocas ($22) — Catalan pizzas made with unleavened cornflour, fatter than the Italian counterparts and slathered with romesco instead of red sauce. With combos including serrano and blue cheese, basil and nectarine, they're good drinking food but not really on the pizza radar.

Like the Royal Saxon, the absence of any significant boundaries between eating and drinking areas encourages a feeling of contained chaos. That's the price of admission, so anyone who can't deal with the noise and the kinetic (and sometimes frenetic) energy should stick to lunch.

The insouciance is mirrored in the wine offering — from the barrel, it's a cleanskin affair, sold by the glass or carafe and served in small, chunky glasses.

Some staff members give the feeling they're waiting on an important call from their agent, while others are polished performers, complete naturals when it comes to selling the Newmarket concept.

Flying under the radar on the first visit, the law of diminishing returns demanded that by night's end we were sitting among dirty plates trying to catch someone's eye. On that occasion (when neither Wilson nor group executive chef Stephen Burke were in), the wood rotisserie lamb was a joke: two dry, gnarly and minuscule end pieces and one slightly bigger bit, with zucchini and a salad. It shouldn't have been let out of the kitchen, much less to the tune of the new St Kilda price of $33. Ouch.

The same dish ordered again second visit (after being clocked instantly) was great — a wealth of perfect pink meat. I'll presume it was the rule rather than the exception.

The wood-fired pigeon is staking its claim as the Newmarket's signature dish: rare meat with a very plummy red mole and rice with blackbeans, sweetcorn and chorizo — sweetness and bitterness balanced with some great flavours.

And the pork ribs ($35) are a typically gutsy Wilson dish of uncompromising presentation — a Flintstonian rack, the meat falling off the bone and slathered in a smoky barbecue sauce. There's coleslaw, too, bound with apple sauce instead of mayo — sweet perfection against the charry ribs.

Over two visits, I managed only one dessert (all $14). The Latin-style pot of bitter chocolate, caramelised banana and dulce de leche (like a milky jam) was good and worthy of more love than it received.

In focus, strength and mission, the Newmarket is the equal of its stablemates and the original flavours ought to notch it one up.

My dining compadre, a habitue of the old Newmarket, would also like to point out that it's no longer necessary to trek through the men's toilet to get to the ladies'. Evolution isn't always a good thing but in this instance, there are many reasons to celebrate.

Score: 14.5/20