Pei Modern

Pei Modern is the kind of restaurant you always forget about and don’t know why. Here it sits at the base of the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins, the quiet antithesis of a hotel lobby restaurant. To be fair, the place is a slight anomaly: a sustainability-focused bistronomy concept on investment banker turf, with a Sydney chef, Marque’s Mark Best, as figurehead. When it opened back in 2012, the whole thing sounded like a gamble, but it paid off. So well, in fact, that Pei Modern Sydney opened late last year.

It’s this development that brings us skulking back to the Sofitel bus bay. (That, and remembering this is one of the CBD’s best places to wrap your mitts around interesting wine over a $39 express lunch.)

Head chef Matt Germanchis has formally migrated north to run Pei Modern in Sydney, which is ongoing proof that Best doesn’t take the responsibility of outposts lightly. Best and Germanchis used to speak on the phone constantly, ensuring the dishes of Marque and Pei were different but still philosophically aligned. Now it’s a three-way conversation with Florent Gerardin, the Vue de Monde protege who Germanchis tapped to take his place. 

Gerardin was a good choice. He’s got the militaristic training of Shannon Bennett behind him, a sustainability mindset from time at Silo by Joost and a lightly held rein from Best. He’s moving with the energy of a chef on fire. 

For the most part that energy is translating into elegant, interesting food. 

Roasted bone marrow with beef tendon puffs for crackers sounds like a shortcut to palate annihilation but it’s deftly scythed by a potent, vinegary dressing of anchovies, capers and mustard. Salt cod croquettes have firm threads of fish and potato, giving the usually gloopy torpedoes substance. They’re wins for adventurers and beefy business trippers who have stumbled in by accident.

There’s familiarity and freshness to a plate laid with two bed sheets of cured ocean trout, cut on the bias and dressed with a house-cultured cream and chives. Get it with crunchy cucumber batons, furry with lemon zest and salt for running through a satiny, soy-miso mayonnaise. That vegan snack on its own is stupidly simple and crazy delicious.

See also a plate of kohlrabi ribbons (like a radish-turnip hybrid with the juicy crunch of a nashi pear), tanged up with a buttermilk dressing and draped with wispy thin rags of smoked rare beef. Salty little pepitas bring it all together into a king hit of freshness and punch. These are Gerardin’s own dishes and they work.

He’s less footsure reimagining Best’s almond gazpacho dish. The fresh crab and grapes have been replaced by pickled clams and sour slivers of blood plum. It’s an awkward combination that brings out the bitterness of the nuts in the chilled cream rather than their sweetness. But it’s a rare misstep, if you don’t count the enthusiastic dusting of most dishes with a powder made from the salvaged kohlrabi tops. 

Gerardin is pushing bounds, but he’s still toeing the approachable line, subtly introducing fruits and offal as tasty elements of surprise. 

Snapper tartare is spicy and gingery with golden dots of fudgy egg yolk, all mounted on a fizzing cracker of dehydrated cooked green rice. He’s taken a kransky and injected it with so much raclette it’s an explosive eating hazard. This is looped with fat onion rings and a sharp tomato relish. 

It’s the kind of comforting dish this room needs. While the bar side is all warm woods and curved ceilings, the dining room lives in perennial winter: a scattering of tables and form-fitting white seats against a backdrop of greys, including knobbly leafless vines strapped to the exposed pipes. Scando-chic or bleak? You decide. 

The usual presence of floor boss Ainslie Lubbock does a lot to thaw that space. She’s in Sydney with Germanchis right now, but will be back once the set-up is complete.  

A mix of the progressive with the familiar makes this place a win for the hotel and Paris-end crowd – and Melbourne in general. Pei Modern may not always feel like an exciting restaurant, but it is. Lest we forget. 

THE LOW-DOWN
Pro tip The $39 two-course express lunch is great value
Go now? After a slow start, Florent Gerardin’s ready to roll.
Go-to dish Bone marrow, beef tendons, anchovy and capers, $9.

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 18Excellent 19 Outstanding 20 The best of the best