It’s new, unconventional, and the baked goods are a triumph. But does this CBD all-day venture work?

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I wouldn’t be the first person to point out that menus tend to be quite similar these days. That’s no surprise – every era has its trends, every city has its specialities, and there’s a good reason chefs fall back on crowd-pleasers. They sell! What fool would turn their back on the easy money of giving the people what they want?

That said, in the post-COVID world there’s been a retreat into sameness that feels more pronounced. Coming out of a traumatic few years, customers want comfort and luxury. They’re less likely to take risks with their discretionary spending. Investors are more conservative, less willing to back someone’s crazy passion project, more interested in the safe bet.

Because of these things, it’s exciting to see a venue like Antara 128 open, an all-day restaurant from the Windsor Group that’s not playing anything safe. The ambition of this place is off the charts, with a full-scale bakery operation, as well as breakfast and lunch six days a week, dinner service five nights a week and a brunch menu on Sundays.

The massive open kitchen is packed with state-of-the-art gadgetry, alongside technology that’s been around for thousands of years – a wood-burning oven takes place of honour in the centre of the space. The menu is wildly unconventional, and wildly interesting as a result.

Bread and pastry are the focus in the mornings in the bakery-cafe that fronts the large space, and on the breakfast menu. Head baker Didiet Radityawan is not playing around: his offering of gorgeously lacquered danishes, deeply flavoured sourdoughs and crackly, stretchy croissants is a triumph that ought to put Antara 128 on the map even without the rest of the operation.

The non-bakery side of things is a little harder to judge. It’s difficult to find a through line with the cooking here, other than the baking that’s at the heart of much of what the kitchen produces. I wonder if this is a function of the fact that Antara was planned around chef Khanh Nguyen, who left the Windsor group abruptly in July.

Allan Doert Eccles, who was the opening chef at Gimlet, has since taken on the head chef position at Antara, and some of his menu is downright thrilling. But there are a few dishes that struggle to find their place as part of a whole.

Raw tuna, advertised as “en croute” ($22), glistens with freshness, diced and piled atop buffalo ricotta and crushed peas in a crackly canoe of pastry shell – a lovely springtime dish, and gorgeous to look at, too.

An elegant snack is made from artichoke and hazelnut smeared in a chicory leaf, then topped with a thin slice of salty noix de jambon, a French-style ham made from a single muscle ($28).

Tender calamari ($34) has its spotlight stolen by the utterly delicious braised borlotti beans it rests upon, dripping with garlicky flavour and served with soft milk bread. The snacks and small plates are almost universally great.

“The menu is wildly unconventional, and wildly interesting as a result.”

But a few dishes are head-scratchers. A huge dumpling over braised greens ($34) looks like a round of burrata and tastes like the washed rind of the L’Artisan Mountain Man cheese it’s partially made from. It’s a very peculiar dish, with a uniform consistency that’s technically impressive but not quite pleasurable. Again, I applaud the ambition and the distinctiveness, but I’m not sure that it works.

Spaghetti comes in a prawn-on-prawn-on-prawn preparation ($42), with prawn head sauce, a jumble of raw Skull Island prawns, and crispy school prawns as garnish. It’s a cool idea, but the pasta was gummy, which only added to the textural oddity of the whole. Basic cooking was also an issue on a dish of wood-roasted flathead ($46), the fish overcooked and a little tough.

My favourite on the dessert menu was a cunning take on the cheese plate, a tiny buttery tart shell filled with Tarago blue cheese, sticky honeycomb, and prunes ($12).

After three visits to Antara 128, I’m left with plenty of questions. What does this restaurant want to be? What’s the through line in the cooking?

Also: why end breakfast at 10.30am when the room is busier then than it is at 7.30 on a Thursday evening? Has any consideration been made for the way that Melbourne actually eats? (Hint: we love breakfast! At 11.30!)

Why is there a pasta section on this menu if pasta isn’t a strong suit?

Why can’t we take away leftover food at dinner when half of the operation is a bakery, necessitating a takeaway licence? (My son, a recent nest-leaver, watched in misery as half of his very good chicken main went towards the bin because we weren’t allowed to take it with us – he will eat instant ramen while the landfill gets his lovely chicken.)

Why are some wines a better deal by the glass than by the bottle?

These things, individually, are tiny niggling concerns. But collectively, they feel inhospitable or unconsidered.

Gosh, there’s so much I love about this restaurant: its boldness, its distinctiveness, its ambition. The pastry and breads are fantastic. The service is stellar.

But, as it is right now? Antara 128 struggles to find a cohesive identity. I’m guessing that’s part of why it hasn’t been as busy (at night) as one might expect. I can imagine looking at this website and menu and thinking: “Is this my jam? I have no idea.”

I also have every confidence that it will get there, rise to the occasion, and become its best self. If these are the growing pains we need in order to get a restaurant that’s doing something more, something new?

Yeah, I’ll take it.