"With such a strong migrant culture and ever-expanding suburban sprawl, Melbourne’s best suburban restaurants are popping up on the reg, from Reservoir to Moonee Ponds and Carnegie." Urban List
I'm not at all sure that the food critics of Melbourne know what the word suburb means. Whenever you look at publications like The Age Good Food Guide and search the suburb section - you rarely get anything on a suburb beyond what I would call the inner suburbs - those that ring the CBD - Carlton, Fitzroy, Prahran, St. Kilda and so on. Occasionally another suburb in the next ring is 'discovered' and becomes trendy - Oakleigh, Footscray, Camberwell, Brunswick, Preston ... However, it is extremely rare for suburbs like my own - some 25 km from the CBD and those which are far beyond mine, or further in but definitely 'ordinary' get a mention. If you go out into the surrounding countryside - the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula, the Dandenongs, Daylesford it all becomes trendy again and the, mostly expensive, restaurants out there have food critics all over them. Why is this? Because I would suggest that there is barely a suburb in Melbourne that doesn't have at least a few cafés, bars and restaurants that are worth at least a look. They may not be Michelin star standard, and some are probably awful, but mostly I'm guessing they are of a more than acceptable standard. And ignored.
Well not by the locals of course. But by the food critics, unless somehow you can get one of them to visit.
I'm talking about this today, because last night we dined out with friends in one of our two local Thai restaurants. There is nothing flashy about this place - Thai Sontaya. It is small - as small as a small suburban shop - about the size of a hairdresser's or some such. It could maybe seat 20 people or so. There is no flashy decor, and there is a desk just inside the door where you can order takeaway and sit and wait. It's a typical suburban ethnic restaurant. And I'm pretty sure that just about every suburb in Melbourne has at least one of these. Probably many.
And yet the food was delicious. Well certainly more delicious than I could cook and much more authentic. Now I do not know a lot about Thai cuisine, but it seemed pretty similar to the food I ate in Bangkok and Phuket in visits gone by, where we dined in expensive hotel and resort restaurants. Possibly not as beautifully presented but the taste was familiar. It was a Wednesday night but it was pretty busy if not full.
The suburban local restaurants - Indian, Thai, Middle-Eastern, Greek, Italian, Chinese to name just a few of the ethnicities that exist in Melbourne deserve so much more acclaim than they get. They have introduced us to their cuisines, even if the food snobs will probably say that what they offer is watered down and not genuine, and they have provided us with cheap venues at which to socialise with our friends and neighbours.
So I thought I would look at what is on offer here in Eltham. Now I will admit that Eltham is a generally prosperous suburb with an artistic and almost hippy reputation. It actually is not as hugely multicultural as some suburbs but when I looked at our restaurants today I was pleasantly surprised at what a mix was available. According to Trip Advisor there are 53 restaaurants in Eltham. Let's say 50 because I think a few were mentioned twice, and the list did include McDonalds, Subway and the local Fish and Chip Shop, but even so they actually missed out at least a couple I think. That's a lot of places to eat in a medium sized suburb, so I do recognize that others may not have quite so many options, but I'm pretty sure that almost everywhere has some. Indeed I just checked Broadmeadows, which I recently saw listed as Melbourne's poorest suburb and Trip Advisor lists 43 eating establishments there.
But back to Eltham. What do we have? Well the standard mix of Indian, Chinese, Japanese sushi bars, the aforesaid Thai and Greek, and I've probably missed some - yes we now have Mexican and two hamburger specialists. Then there are a range of neighbourhood cafés, one of which - The Third Chapter is shown at the top of the page. That one is in the central shopping precinct, and along with several others is always packed with people, and yet, one of those - currently a hamburger bar and in many ways in the best location with a huge open but covered deck, is always deserted. It's an unlucky spot.
And perhaps I should also mention our artisan bakery - Old Evropa Bakery which has recently expanded it's offerings to a café where you can eat pastries such as these. I'm told the raspberry one is to die for, and they did win the prize of best panetonne, baked outside Italy recently.
In an unlikely spot - just along the Main Road into Melbourne and not near anywhere significant is the Zen Den. It lies on the route of one of my walks back from the shops and I am always amazed at how busy it is - all seasons of the year, and throughout the day it is packed with people either sitting inside or in the small outside area chatting with their friends or else just picking up a takeaway coffee. Why do people do that? Maybe they make the best coffee in Melbourne. I have never been there, although my grandchildren have. It looks small from the outside, but is not inside apparently. It used to be a bike shop.
Away from the centre is Second Home - a classic Australian brunch kind of place in an old mud brick factory in at the edge of the light industrial section of Eltham and near to the Leisure centre, which may well have its own café inside. Ambience is king here, and the food is pretty good if not five star although the servie is sometimes a bit slow.
We even have our own hatted restaurant in Mercer's - a favorite place to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries for us. The food is very high class - these Malaysian dancing prawns are Stephen Mercer's signature dish and are divine. His wife Ute is a most wonderful front of house manager. In an old cottage in old Eltham, it is worth the trip from anywhere on this side of Melbourne - Perhaps too far from the beach and western suburbs. And this is one that the food critics have noticed. But there are others that they should.
Then there is a place that some friends from faraway Wheeler's Hill, suggested that we should investigate Little Drop of Poison. Now this one has been noticed by Dani Valent of The Age, and she seems pretty impressed, saying:
"That glow you see as you walk down the alley isn’t just light. It’s heart and soul on the plate and in the glass."
This is just one of the gorgeously illustrated dishes on offer here. It's a tiny, tiny, tapas bar, down a side alley on the way to the station car park. We are planning to go there with some friends, but my daughter-in-law tells me that it is difficult to get in and that you have to book well in advance. But I will try. The owner is from Chile, and I think his chef is from Spain. I'm not normally a huge fan of Spanish food, but all the dishes illustrated on the website look amazing. I didn't know that it was there, until our friends told me about it.
At the other end of the central strip is another tiny establishment Bar Piccolo. Now, having just checked it out on Trip Advisor I see only bad reviews there, but then one probably shouldn't pay too much attention to them - or should we? They do food as well. For the young set anyway.
But still on drinks - and ignoring the local pub and an establishment called Missing Gorilla, which also seems to be a kind of pub complete with trivia nights and live music, there is also another hidden establishment that has been noticed more widely - Naught gin distillery and bar, (shown here) which my older son told me about. This also is mostly a bar, - speakeasy in style they say, but they do have a limited number of snacky kind of food offerings.
And I almost forgot we also have an Augustus gelatery, which seems to be a chain of ice cream vendors. In the summer it is hugely popular. Not so much now of course. The sort of place found more usually in places like Carlton, however.
So Eltham seems to have the lot from the local pub and McDonalds and all that that entails, to a hatted fine dining establishment. And OK - a couple have indeed been noticed by the food critics, but it's all those ethnic eateries and small cafés that really should be recognised. They generally provide almost wonderful, indeed sometimes wonderful food, that is so different from what you can produce at home, for a very reasonable price.
As I said at the beginning, Eltham is perhaps a privileged suburb with a population that can afford to dine out or sit in cafés for hours on end, and so it can support classier establishments than some, but nevertheless I would be amazed if there exists a single suburb in all of Melbourne including the most far flung of its suburbs, and its poorest, that does not have at least one or two café/restaurants. Those critics should get out more. Maybe their publications could trawl Melbourne one suburb at a time and write about that suburb. The Saturday Age long ago had a series called Eat Streets in which they highlighted particular streets in Melbourne - the trendy suburbs admittedly. Maybe they should do the same for the suburbs.
POSTSCRIPT
Long ago on August 8th
2023 - Nothing happening in 2023 again
2021 - Whose kitchen is it anyway?
2019 - Nothing doing here
2018 - 'Light' and easy
2016 - Sausage stew from Yugoslavia
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