Icon review: If you’re a lover of seafood and wine, Bacash is the place for you

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“I don’t care what anyone says,” Michael Bacash declared as he walked through his busy dining room one evening recently. “I think the kitchen’s doing great!”

The chef and co-owner of Bacash, the 23-year-old restaurant that borders the Botanical Gardens in South Yarra, was speaking to no one in particular and it was unclear why he felt the need to make the proclamation. The hum in the sleek, grey dining-room was a happy one; no one appeared to be objecting to the work of the kitchen or anything else.

For the most part, people who come to Bacash know what they’re getting. Fish, cooked incredibly well. Wine, one of the better selections in town, presented with enthusiasm and knowledge by Fiona Bacash; there are French, German and Australian labels, but also smart picks from Italy, Spain and even the US – a rarity on Melbourne lists.

Service is professional, friendly and classic enough to adhere to standards that have slipped out of fashion in the age of “Let me run you through the menu”.

The staff assume you know how to order your own food; they provide you with the correct utensils and they make sure they’re there to open the door for you when you leave. It says something about the state of modern dining that I encounter all of these things – which used to be standard in restaurants of a certain price point – with a sense of relief.

These days, it’s difficult to find a beautifully cooked piece of fish and even harder to encounter more than one kind on any given restaurant menu. At Bacash, the preparations rarely change and the daily specials are seasonally predictable, but there are always multiple options.

You’d be wise to start with oysters, either fresh or grilled ($36 per half-dozen), the latter topped with cheese and spinach and fantastically gooey and decadent.

Scallops ($29.50), sliced crosswise and lightly seared, are placed on a wide plate next to a smear of pureed Jerusalem artichokes, the two kinds of sweetness – oceanic and vegetal – playing beautifully together.

A sturdy house-made crumpet ($34) holds an impressive amount of shredded spanner crab, bound with Pernod mayo and topped with salmon roe.

It’s hard to resist the whole fish of the day, which is flounder (market price), grilled simply and served with a bowl of thin, crisp chips.

But my favourite dishes here are the standards, in particular the garfish ($46), a deeply underappreciated fish that isn’t as easy to cook as Bacash makes it seem. Here, the long fillets are soft and mellow and draped over hunks of beetroot and daubs of horseradish creme fraiche.

If you’re in the mood for a classic, thoroughly garlicky spaghetti marinara ($49) that’s packed with more seafood than you’re likely to be able to eat, this is the place for you.

This isn’t a restaurant where dessert is an afterthought; in fact, it’s serving some of the best restaurant-made ice-cream in town ($22.50). The chocolate has a wonderful edge of bitterness and cherry undertones, while the pistachio is all nuttiness with none of the weird, green soapiness that besmirches many pistachio ice-creams.

And why hasn’t anyone else ever thought to turn sticky date pudding into a souffle ($26)? It’s as good as it sounds, all airy and stretchy and hot in all the right ways.

Bacash himself is an interesting presence in the room. He delivers food to customers with quips that border on aggressive and I get the sense that his mercurial temperament goes a long way towards setting the tone of the night – for the staff, in particular.

You can expect the personality of the chef to pervade the atmosphere of a space that bears his or her name, but when things get shouty here – as they do, occasionally – an uncomfortable energy seeps into the dining room.

People who come to Bacash know what they’re getting. Fish, cooked incredibly well.

It’s obvious, though, that Bacash is a kind of town square for people of a certain demographic in this neighbourhood. The number of customers who know one another speaks to a sense of community that’s inevitable when an upscale restaurant has been operating for 23 years in a suburb synonymous with old money.

As an interloper, I found myself charmed by the steadiness of the place, the absolute dismissal of fads, the sticking to what the kitchen does well.

It’s not a restaurant for everyone, but if you’re a lover of seafood and wine and someone who values classicism over trends, Bacash really is the place for you.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine