Shadowboxer Bar & Kitchen review

South Yarra. Who knew it would be this year's Big Thing? If you're a keen diner, or moreover a thirsty one, you'll have found yourself walking past Chapel Street's Country Road collection more than ever before. The land of expensive jeans, juice bars and TGI Fridays has off-duty chefs stacking the bar seats at Nick Stanton's Ramblr. Charlie Carrington, the 23-year-old prodigy behind Atlas, is everyone's young gun to watch, and any minute now you'll be jumping the South Yarra train again for Paul Wilson's Wilson & Market, along with Harvest.

Today it's Shadowboxer you're here for. A converted terrace on the sleepier side of Toorak Road, it's been open since December and is run by bar professionals. It reminds you (if you dare to drink on both sides of the river) of Brunswick's graphic-designer-run HOST.

It's that same aesthetically-trim, drinks-focused model where everyone on staff and in the seats is disco-yoga fit and ranks at least an eight or a 10. The light is flattering. Fonts have been considered. Your friendly waiter, if you can catch one, tells you "everything is gluten-free." But you'd already guessed that from arctic colour scheme and kooky inverted landscapes on the walls.

Meet drinner. It's the future. A sort of brunch for the nighttime that's more than drinks, less than dinner, and coming to a immaculate venue near you.

Owners Michael Thom and Luke Thompson crossed paths at house-of-the-$5-pizza Lucky Coq. Thompson also managed Borscht Vodka Tears with third partner Nick Aitken, founder of gin festival Juniperlooza.

The moral is, drinks are a good place to start, continue and end. Beers, wines and spirits are almost all backyard names: Temple pilsners, Mornington browns. If drinking sauv blanc southside is against your religion, a glass of cloudy tropical funk from Three Dark Horses might change your position.

When you order a martini, syrupy-chilled with the dilution factor low you have the option of eight local gins or six vodkas. The only outsiders on a hugely local back bar are the odd bourbon and tequila, the latter of which is topped off with grapefruit Capi, bitters and orgeat for a Mexican pep rally by mouth.

A locavore angle is pushed on the food front too, but I'd consider chef Liz Contini's focus to be more about local eaters than local ingredients (the sentiment falls flat when they can only identify their "local" jamon as from their butcher). It's by parts vegan and paleo, trashy and luxe.

You can consume a whole dinner, slipping meat off barbecue sauce-squiggled duck ribs, pinching up that jamon (from near Bendigo, I later discover) chasing with tanned and lemony zucchini croquettes (furry with ricotta salata but otherwise shy on seasoning), without ever seeing a carb.

Contini can drop the odd passe foam, and occasionally overdo it on the hot button ingredients – the soft roasted cauliflower with quinoa, kale, pistachio, spiced hummus and beetroot relish is more a working model of a wellness article than a considered collection of flavours – but she a lands a few KO punches.

Pan-fried barramundi with crisp golden bark is all juicy, muddy flesh prettily offset by clams, sweet pea puree and grassy parsley foam. The sweet, nutty and barely spiced corn, scythed-off-the-cob and layered with toasted coconut and a jalapeno-heated aioli is salvation for the vegetarian drinker.

So service takes a little lassoing. And some dishes are better viewed with one under the belt (plating isn't always strong). But there's still blessed few places where ordering a trustworthy old fashioned built on local whisky and an intense chocolate and peppermint dessert with earthy pistachio ice-cream can all happen without standing up. 

Drinner: I'm convinced you're a good thing.