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A foodies' guide to Mordialloc

Mordialloc is a charming little seaside pocket with a surprising number of food hotspots to explore.

Jane Ormond

Burgers and jam jar cocktails at the Mordy Supper Club.
Burgers and jam jar cocktails at the Mordy Supper Club.Supplied

Mordialloc is a charming little pocket – a seaside suburb propped on Nepean Highway at the halfway point between the city and the Mornington Peninsula. There's the palm-lined shopping strip of Main Street and a pretty creek flowing out into the bay, with postcard snapshots of boats bobbing on the water while weekend cyclists lounge at outdoor cafes.

Mordialloc may be compact but, like most unsuspecting suburbs in Melbourne, there are a surprising number of food hotspots to be found if you know where to look. Sure, it's beachside, but it ain't just fish and chips in Mordy.

Here are just a few places to start exploring. (Don't forget to keep an eye out for the Mordialloc Food, Wine and Music Festival too, Saturday, February 28 to Sunday, March 1 2015.)

Provisions

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Tucking a loaf of artisan bread under your arm on a Saturday morning is one of life's great pleasures, and Rustic Bakery Cafe do a cracking line in excellent, flavoursome sourdough loaves (try the Ezekiel with spelt flour) that need nothing more than a slap of butter. However, if you want to Rolls Royce that bread with some pate, head to Mordialloc Fine Foods. They stock free-range meat, including Bannockburn chickens and house-made individual chicken and leek pies, and their sausages are made by a local butcher to their own recipe. To stock your pantry with healthy staples, head to Wild Yam. This health food store with a vegan and vegetarian cafe attached has a fantastic range of health foods to take home, plus a towering range of raw foods (and impressive sweets) so you can have a creamy chai and a blueberry macadamia slice and still feel saintly.

Away from the Main Street action and into Parkdale , you'll find a neat enclave of shops on Warren Road, including the Warren Village Food Store. Look for the window lined in French cheese boxes and step inside to find high-quality breads, pastas and chutneys, while a cabinet heaves with cheeses, meats from Rob's British Butchers, house-made salads and take-home meals.

Rustic Bakery Shop 5, 540 Main Street, Mordialloc, 9580 8808
Wild Yam 499 Main Street, Mordialloc, 0413 552 581
Mordialloc Fine Foods 515 Main Street, Mordialloc, 9588 0606

Warren Village Food Store – 71 Warren Road, Parkdale, 9580 7841

Cafes

Totter off the train at Mordialloc and you'll segue directly into Main Street, a big, bustling cafe with bags of good-time atmosphere filling the warm, woodsy interior and sunny outdoor bar seating. The menu is a tasty spin on the classics – sweet corn and capsicum fritters or avo smash for brekkie, bagels and pides for lunch, share plates for lazy afternoons. Or you can hopscotch across the road for afternoon tea at French Delicacies, where the rhubarb tarts are delicate, restrained discs, apple and almond pithiviers are rustic, not too sweet and perfect with coffee, and vanilla slice have piped layers of cream interwoven with the flakiest layers of pastry.

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Getting off the Main Street track and weaving inland to Parkdale, you'll find Cafe on Warren, a light, bright and airy cafe with a Scandi feel, doing cafe staples with style (think meats smoked in-house or smashed avocado with charred corn) and a seasonal Friday night dinner menu (most recently, beef ribs) to complement their regular pizza offerings. Then, tucked away in the middle of a residential tract, you'll find Oscar's Hangout, a stripped-back and rustic dining space, with a colourful outdoor area and great cafe fare like hash browns with green mole, poached eggs, haloumi and dukkah. Servings are generous, service is sweet and it's wisely kid-friendly.

Main Street, 501-505 Main Street, Mordialloc, 9580 8150
French Delicacies, Shop 11, 600 Main Street, Mordialloc, 8510 5050
Cafe on Warren, 83-85 Warren Road, Parkdale, 9590 9009
Oscar's Hangout, Shop 2, 11 Hall Mark Road, Mordialloc, 9580 9941

Asian eateries

The name might be a misnomer but at Paris Hot Bread Bakery you can pick up a good ol' Vietnamese pork roll (your choice of crumbed pork or red pork) with zingy carrot and coriander for a mere $6. Or, if you want to go to the other end of the price range spectrum, you can head to Sun Wah. Quality seasonal ingredients with a contemporary spin reign supreme here, with dishes such as ginger pear scallops with crisp pork belly, barbecue char-sui pork bun sliders, steamed whole prawn olive oil dumplings and palm sugar duck with cinnamon bark and nashi pear.

Paris Hot Bread Bakery, 572 Main Street, Mordialloc, 9587 6815
Sun Wah, 229 Beach Road, Mordialloc, 9580 4376

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Best of the beach

Being so close to the beach means fish and chips by the water are mandatory at some point in the day. Mordy has a number of fish and chippers to choose from, including the jaunty new Tommy Ruff, where you can get your classics as well as fish tacos and seafood chowder. If you want to spend a breezy brunch at a table, watching boats bobbing on the breeze, grab a table on the deck at Doyles Bridge Hotel where, in the cafe, you can get breakfast classics as well as a smoked salmon-filled quesadilla or a breakfast pizza with housemade beans, sumac and a poached egg.

Tommy Ruff, 574a Main Street, Mordialloc, 9580 2525
Doyles Deck and Bistro, Bridge Hotel, 1 Nepean Highway, Mordialloc. 8587 1000.

Drink up

There's nothing nicer than sitting outside on a sunny afternoon with a sea breeze and a glistening drink. Mordialloc Cellar Door has handsome walls lined with wine, features pavement seating and an open windowed bar where you're invited to BYO food from any of the local eateries when you purchase drinks from the store. Experiment with your own food and wine pairings. A glass of soave and some fried chicken, anyone?

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Later in the day, Mordy Supper Club keeps it laidback with old velvet couches and a bare brick interior, decent pub snacks, jam jar cocktails and Friday night beer and pizza specials, with live music, or you can saddle up at Side Street, Main Street's boozy little sister, which is a nifty bar with chunky wooden stools, a pinchos menu and a neat range of house-infused vodkas.

Mordialloc Cellar Door, 622 Main Street, 9580 6521
Mordy Supper Club, 539 Main Street, 9580 7005
Side Street, 501-505 Main Street, 9580 8150

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