The Crimean

THE Crimean is the restaurant I've been waiting for. It's an adventure in the little-understood, often-maligned cuisine of eastern Europe that has defied the trend towards a new generation of young chefs taking their culinary heritage up a notch. It's a response to the food of Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Ukraine and Russia and more than manages to respect their history without falling into the serf-food trap. It's about time.

To be absolutely fair, there have been a few restaurants around the bagel belt for time immemorial offering starchy menus and often throwing in a floor show for free. There was Scheherazade, of course. But until now the best bet for anyone without a bubbe of their own has been getting friendly with someone else's. Never met one who couldn't cook up a storm.

But the Crimean is the first Melbourne restaurant pitched as a modern take on the swath of cultures and influences that makes up eastern Europe. In ingredient terms we're talking cabbage, of course, and beetroot; salmon and sour cream; pork in myriad forms and a whole load of pickling.

In practical terms we're talking Georgian meatballs made from veal and chicken with the creeping Middle Eastern influence of pine nuts, cinnamon and thick sour cream. Gravlax of ocean trout, served in a sardine tin alongside a stack of smoked eel and blini. Pan-tossed chicken livers with that crucial pink centre, bacon and hazelnuts soothing the iron aftertaste.

There's a special subheading reserved on the menu for dumplings, such as the excellent Russian pelmeni, filled with beef and pork and sluiced with paprika butter and fresh horseradish, or Ukrainian vareniki. The Crimean's version of these little crescent-shaped dumplings filled with mushroom and cabbage are about as authentic as you'll find in Melbourne. The skins could be just a smidgen thinner - the pleated fold where the dough is pinched by hand is occasionally a little thick - but it's a small criticism for such fine examples of Ukraine's contribution to the great dumplings of the world.

The people behind the Crimean have their papers in order. Lazlo Evenhuis, formerly sommelier at Gills Diner, has a Hungarian family connection, and Frank Moylan and Melissa Macfarlane, who together resurrected Daylesford's Farmers Arms Hotel to a regional gastropub star. Macfarlane liked Bulgaria so much she bought a house there.

From the street their North Melbourne corner pub is about as nondescript as it's possible to be, but inside the decor rises to the retro challenge without falling into a mess of horrible Soviet cliches. The front bar is all wood, dark and moody with a turntable that gets cranking at Latvian folk songs, moves through a klezmer stage and finishes with Chuck Berry. The dining room has brushed aluminium chairs that take a minute to soak up body heat, bare wooden tables and classy knick-knacks galore. There's a Cyrillic wall mural, candelight, and a starkly lit tree branch that brings the winter inside.

It's altogether lovely. The bold visual context helps set the scene, but some more context on the floor would prevent it being undersold. The staff are a little stretched, although Evenhuis will never stint on time explaining his singular wine list that follows his love of small Victorian producers (his work at Gills won the 2010 Age Good Food Guide gong for best short list) and mixes it with drops from the Crimean's broad remit. He's an excellent tour guide for the wines of Croatia, Montenegro, Hungary and Georgia, and he also now comes armed with a full quiver of Slavic digestives.

The chef is Alrich Hansen, who has previously cooked at Rumi and Bar Lourinha, two similarly ethnically focused places that really get it. He hasn't gone overboard in fudging its peasant origins with modern sleights of hand and kitchen trickery. It isn't the haute cuisine version of Eastern Bloc food. Food like this doesn't do haute, even though ''lamb shoulder, prunes, barley, rainbow chard'' could be sighted on any modish restaurant menu. So could the pickled beetroot salad with lazy curls of smoked Latvian cheese with walnuts and mint. Or the tart shopska salad, one of those all-purpose side dishes - it's a mixture of peppers with soused red onion, cucumber, tomato and feta - that goes with anything and is the way to kick off any meal in Bulgaria. Or, for that matter, soft slices of milk-poached pork neck with garlic aioli and a zippy green apple and celery salad.

There's nothing shy and retiring about the bigger dishes. They're bold and assertive, meaty and generous, but the cooking is modern and the attitude fresh and informal. Take, for example, the unmistakable elements of the Russian salad - boiled egg, radish and boiled kipflers with a tangy kefir (yoghurt-like) dressing - given grace by a generous wedge of house-smoked salmon.

On the lustier side there's the Polish casserole known as bigos that marries oxtail and garlicky smoked pork sausage with a cornichon-studded sauerkraut that leaves a vinegar burn in the throat. You'll want a side of duck fat potatoes sprinkled with paprika to complete the artery calcification.

Some plates miss the mark. The gulyas - beef rump goulash - is underwhelming, and desserts need work. Sour-cherry pan-fried dumplings are likeable but arrive with garden-variety chocolate ice-cream (they were out of the prescribed liquorice) and I'd be more excited about the rhubarb with yoghurt and pistachio praline at breakfast.

But saving space for dessert on this particular foodie trip is what I would call a false economy. In fact, if you have space for dessert, you really haven't taken the eastern European challenge. Whether it's in the spirit of nostalgia or discovery, the Crimean is a fabulous journey.

Food Eastern European

Where 351 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne

Phone 9329 3353

Cost Typical entree, $12.50; main, $29.50; dessert $12

Licensed

Wine list Excellent value and interest across a list that divides its time between Eastern Europe and boutique Victorians

We drank Plantaze Krstac (Lake Skadar, Montenegro), $7.50/$33

Owners Lazlo Evenhuis, Frank Moylan and Melissa Macfarlane

Vegetarian Three entrees, one main

Noise Moderate

Service Good wine service but overall a little stretched

Wheelchairs Yes

Outdoors No

Parking Street

Web thecrimean.com

Cards AE MC V Eftpos

Hours Thurs-Sun, noon-3.30pm; Tues-Sun, 6pm-9.30pm