Arintji Cafe Bar

Rating: 15/20

THERE is no more delicate way to put this: last time I ate at Arintji was a sad reminder of what happens to a restaurant left to its own devices. It was August 2007 and the love once evident at Jacques Reymond's Fed Square bistro had well and truly left the building.

Not that I was in "the building" as such. I sat out in the vast courtyard, under an umbrella, and ordered three small things from a menu that was an early adopter of the small-dishes-for-sharing mantra so widely chanted in the laneways of Melbourne these days.

It was an "oh dear" experience.

The food was lacklustre. I remember jotting a note in a pad and leaving oil from some kind of spring roll thing all over the paper, a takeaway reminder. But the waiter...

Mate, I thought to myself, you may be able to get away with exposing tourists to your complete indifference to this job, but not Melburnians.

For the perfectionist Reymond, it seemed Second Restaurant Syndrome had not only arrived but taken grip. A once-vibrant modern dining space had discovered The Age Good Food Guide's waterslide: 14, 14, 13.5, 12.5...

Managing restaurants has been hard for entrepreneurs recently because boom times meant talented staff had the whip hand. Staff loyalty reached its nadir just before the whole subprime thing set the dominoes in motion. Arintji showed every sign of that skills shortage. And, of course, the Reymonds had other interests to protect. But one of the perverse upsides of the economic swamp our restaurants are about to paddle into is that people like the guy who served me 16months ago will have gone back to Queensland to sell real estate and people like Reymond will finally have a better choice of staff. It's happening around Melbourne. And, at Arintji, it's already happened.

I doubt the Reymond family needed a guidebook to alert them to the malaise that had set in at their bistro, which still looks and feels fresh after five years, testament to the importance of good design from the start, but at least they've done something about it.

First, after a year outside the family business working elsewhere in hospitality, Reymond's scion Edouard has come home to the farm. He's the man in black at the front door, greeting and seating, and generally adding a dollop of professionalism to the experience. Does it make a difference having a family member managing the place and working the floor?

Second, the Reymonds have found an ambitious and talented young chef and given him his head, in turn giving the whole place new impetus. Hallelujah.

Joe Grbac joined Arintji mid-year from Bistro Guillaume, but it's the London experience on his CV that puts his modern European menu into perspective (pretty much gone are the Spanish and Asian flourishes that once defined the restaurant's snacky menu): a year at Gordon Ramsay's premium London restaurant, and more than three with Philip Howard at the two-Michelin-star Square, finishing as sous chef.

You'll forgive me if I went to Arintji with good, if not great, expectations.

Grbac has re-energised the place; there is still a snack menu, but gone are the in-between dishes, replaced by good, old-fashioned entrees and main courses. Not to mention the occasional well-placed foam and gel.

Perversely, I found three entrees a fine way to dip into this lively, imaginative menu.

A pullet egg ($18), cooked long at a very low temperature, for example, is nestled on a thyme-ridden ragout of porcini and field mushroom, right alongside a grilled bacon foam. You get a surfboard of crunchy, savoury pastry millefeuille, dollops of jellied roast chicken consomme, spots of tarragon gel and a thick rug of superior char-grilled bacon (or cured pork of some kind).

It's great. The cart stays right behind the donkey, where it belongs.

There's a lively trio (my word) of tomatoes: a buttery little tart filled with caramelised onion topped with green tomato; a baby panzanella salad of cherry tomatoes of various colours and torn basil, with shaved pear; and a whole black Russian, sliced and marinated in good balsamic, served with a few rags of buffalo mozzarella ($18). A clever, palate-energising assembly.

Another really smart entree is Grbac's salmon "micuit": a piece of fish cooked - if that's the right word - at a super low temperature sous vide, sealed in a bag in a water bath ($19). Visually, the protein remains unaltered and the texture is only marginally changed from that of sashimi, yet the flavour is developed. It sits on a crush of nicola potato with smoked eel, with a salad of asparagus, orange and pine nuts beside it and some translucent potato crackers for good measure. A treat.

The one main tried is in the same league: roots with modernity.

Roasted duck breast is served sliced on a bed of savoy cabbage with a caramelised orange and red wine sauce on the plate, a scattering of bordeaux-red pain d'epices - spiced bread, literally - over the top. And, along with a dice of gingered green apple, and baby turnips, you get a perfect, golden sausage roll of duck leg, heart and liver ($32). The approach is unfussed but the skills on display are very impressive.

An almond milk panna cotta ($13) is too firm but it comes with poached rhubarb and orange "salad" as well as a rhubarb gel; it's on the right track.

A lovely, old-fashioned steamed pudding soused in an impressive mandarin and brandy syrup ($13), with a defiant "slash" of mandarin gel across the plate, is terrific value for money, an oldie cunningly reinvented. The pud's capped with poached mandarin segments, candied pistachios and, alongside, there's an orb of yoghurt foam dusted with mandarin powder.

The only conclusion is that here is one enthusiastic, imaginative cook with a fine palate and a good head. If Grbac can keep up this level of food when the restaurant gets busy, it will be time to acknowledge the advent of a significant new talent in Melbourne. If Reymond (jnr) can attract more dedicated waitstaff, and allow himself to have a little fun with the old-man's enterprise, and maybe get some help with the wine list (which is flat and, in some cases, marked up a bit), Arintji's renaissance will be complete.

In an ocean of bad stories these days, this is an island of good news.

Ratings: 1-9: Unacceptable. 10/11: Just OK, some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: Outstanding. 19/20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Please note all information in this review is correct at time of printing. Restaurant menus, staff and locations change over time.