Ides' casual spin-off has a real feeling of specialness

The world's fanciest restaurants are facing a dilemma spurred by a variety of factors, not all of them bad. With the middle ground – restaurants that are neither fine-dining nor fast-casual – improving so much in the past decade, the case for the top end has become harder to make. The shift is cultural, to be sure, and COVID-19 didn't help matters. But for the consumer, there's little downside to more affordable dining getting better. 

Many of our best and brightest young chefs are firmly dedicated to the bistro, the trattoria, the wine bar, and those places where they're turning out food you can eat on a Tuesday in your yoga pants for under $50. 

Where does that leave the argument for spending hundreds of dollars on food that's sometimes only slightly more considered? For many chefs who have dedicated their lives to the exacting excellence of fine dining, the answer has been to diversify. 

In Copenhagen, Rene Redzepi turned Noma into a burger bar for a time. (He continues to sell those burgers at a stand-alone venue, having re-opened Noma in its seasonal, tasting menu format.)

Ben Shewry made a dash for the country with his pop-up, Attica Summer Camp, which was far more casual (and affordable) than the original Attica. Having dined at Attica recently, I can say that traces of Summer Camp have made their way into the current experience. 

And Navi, the excellent Yarraville fine diner, has expanded its offerings to include bar snacks, allowing guests to experience Julian Hills' cooking without the commitment in time and money – not to mention the difficulty in securing a booking – needed for the degustation.

At March, Peter Gunn has done something similar, albeit with a whole new venue. It is the sibling to Ides, Gunn's six-year-old Collingwood restaurant, which sits firmly in the fancy category (the classic degustation costs $210 a head). 

March borrows a huge amount of its DNA from the hushed, exacting standards of Ides, but is far more accessible. It's a cocktail and wine bar at its heart, offering snacks and a couple of dishes that might constitute a meal.

March has been in the works since 2020, and opened earlier this year for a few weeks as a pop-up, albeit wearing an outfit very different to the sleek look it has today. The low, wide marble bar, slate-grey walls and muted lighting make the small Smith Street storefront one of the sexiest rooms around, a perfect place to start your evening with a well-made martini ($26).

The drinks selection, overseen by sommelier Hayley McCarthy, is both concise and ambitious. (This could be said for almost everything about March, in fact.) Cocktails are classic, reminding you how lovely it is to drink a Manhattan ($26) that's been perfectly stirred. 

Wines are mostly French, Italian and Australian, with a couple of German whites thrown in, and many bottles are well under $100. There's also a small selection of sherries and sake. It's a list for drinks dorks who don't need to show off.

I'll probably be back at March most often for one of those cocktails, a glass of something white and French, and a bowl of chilli roasted peanuts ($9). 

But should I be a little hungrier, I wouldn't hesitate to re-order the green-chilli pickled mussels ($15), served on the shell with a sliver of crisped garlic. It's in the lovely plating, the carefully considered interplay of vinegar tang and garlic sweetness, that you begin to appreciate the ambition and detail in Gunn's cooking.

Vegetable dishes are slightly less successful. A miso-roasted eggplant ($15), crusted with black and white sesame seeds, wasn't quite smooshy enough, sporting the dreaded Styrofoam consistency in its centre. Pressed potato with garlic ($15) is like a fussy potato salad, and good in the way that a potato salad often is. 

I was more enamoured of the sweet-and-sour quail ($28), all lacquered and tangy and perhaps a clever nod to the ubiquity of chicken wings on bar menus; it's a classic made fancy, and winningly so.

If you want a full dinner, you can get a pepper steak ($28) and I suggest you do so with a side of mixed leaves ($10), which are bracingly bitter and wonderful.

But I'm more likely to be back for snacks and drinks, and would rather spend my meat quota on the beef fillet tartare ($22), which is almost too sesame- and kimchi-laden to taste the quality of the fillet, but delicious nonetheless.

Gunn has done something fascinating with March in that this venue, purpose-built for casual use, has been imbued with a feeling of specialness; really, the last quality fine dining can still claim. 

It could be a gateway drug for diners who want to experience Ides in its full glory. Or it could just be a new way forward, where everything at every level just keeps getting better.

Vibe: Sleek and sexy

Go-to dish: Green-chilli pickled mussels ($15)

Drinks: Smart, concise list of cocktails, wine and sake

Cost: About $100 for two, excluding drinks

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine