The Estelle

‘WE WANTED to serve a lot of meat products,’’ says Greg Amor, co-owner of swanky bar and kitchen The Estelle. It’s a bold choice for a cafe in an inner-city vegetarian heartland and a boon for meat eaters, with black pudding and lamb’s fry for breakfast, duck liver parfait and pork neck for dinner.

Fitting then, that The Estelle’s spunky interior is based on a 1950s butcher’s  shop, which explains the hand-knitted sausages, leg of lamb and a chop hanging near the high ceiling.

Glossy pastel tiles (pink, black and white) cover the walls, gleaming spaceship-style lights decorate the ceiling,   chairs and bar stools are custom-built and the thick timber tabletops have been cut from the Northcote Bowl. It’s ‘‘fancy retro’’ so everything matches, there’s not a chipped saucer in sight and the cutlery still has its shine.

The Estelle is the creation of Joshua Davidson (who also owns Lily Blacks in the city) and Amor (Rrose Bar in North Melbourne), and after six months of operation has settled into itself nicely. The handsome bar is well stocked with European wines, cocktails are made with care and even a humble lemon squash is squeezed from fresh lemons and comes with its own stirrer. You’re well looked after but the restrained service, while professional, can come across as slightly aloof.

For a brilliant opener, if it’s on, try the sheer slices of cured pork with sweet peach relish. It’s a traditional Polish dish — the chef is Polish and he also makes the jams for the breakfast croissants.

The shareable food favours a fine-dining approach mostly served on small white platters (serving implements wouldn’t go astray) and there are four daily specials: mussels, fish (like a whole baby snapper with buttered sugar snaps and green peas) and two meats. Absolutely sensational was the potted meat of pork neck, rabbit and prune, served in a cute cocotte. The meat was slow-braised so it was almost paste-like while still keeping its structure. Theflavours all balanced: the sweet prune, the gamey rabbit, the rich pork and the smokiness of the warm, char-grilled bread with which it was served. This is A-grade comfort food.

Beautiful salads may follow, such as roasted cauliflower florets on a thick smear of honeyed Meredith goat’s cheese, with walnut dukkah and ultra-thin cucumber ribbons. Or  golden potatoes, cooked in duck fat with confit garlic and rustic sprigs of thyme.

The veal scaloppini was the only aberration in a fine run. Some of the  meat  had the sinew left on, making them tough. But the rest of the dish — the  celeriac puree and the port and mustard sauce — was excellent.

SOURCE: Epicure