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Thursday May 17, 2012

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Ela's 'lazy lunch' at Albert Street

Posted by: 3AW Radio | 20 January, 2012 - 1:41 PM
Albert

Albert Street Food and Wine – Corner of Albert St & 382 Sydney Rd Brunswick
www.albertst.com.au

Sydney Road of course is known for its fabulous multicultural bent, a colourful almost haphazard streetscape – and in light of this you could pretty much say that Albert Street Food and Wine sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Housed in a grand old bank, this new wine bar, restaurant and food store is slick and it is stylish, from the outside and within. But the great thing about it is that despite this almost imposing first impression, once inside the service is fabulously friendly, and the food elegantly simple.

Those in the know will recognize the name of executive chef Phillippa Sibley, Melbourne’s dessert queen who proves here that the title almost undermines her prowess with the savouries. This very much has the feel of the casual all day eatery – the menu is one that could be picked at over the afternoon, but with meals that would suffice for an indulgent dinner.

In our case, it was a lazy lunch – and it was good. Starting with the charcuterie, the small at $24 is definitely suitable for two people only – with basically two slices of each succulent cured meat – from chorizo, to pig jowl and capocolla. Pickled veg were appreciated, but it was the pickled watermelon rind that most surprised – and impressed.

Other starters were salt cod baccala with “green goddess” - an almost pesto-like accompaniment (appreciated the restocked breads for this one) and the special “bruschette”, a sliced, warmed dinner roll with lashings of melted cheese and subtly salty anchovies.

In terms of mains it’s a fairly simple list, broken down into Pizzas ($14-18), Grill ($15 - $34), Pasta ($26-28) and “Other” ($29-32). Being pretty well full up after particularly indulgent starters, so we shared a pizza and pasta.

The pasta was phenemonal, but as simple as it was good. Spagettini, with prawn chunks, splatterings of charred corn, sweet sticky black garlic and green chilli – this unexpected combination of flavours was just inspiring – a brilliant, fresh summer dish.

The Albert St Special pizza was one of my favourite combinations so an easy choice – roasted peppers, pork & fennel sausage and smoked mozzarella. Most obvious was Sibley’s experience with doughs and pastries, it was possibly the lightest pizza base I’ve ever tasted.

Disappointingly, we ate so much prior to dessert that we just didn’t have the room to try Sibley’s signature course, but it’s not the worst thing in the world to have to come back to try something.

Loved the wine list, which featured good blends from Australia and abroad at extremely affordable prices, with almost all glasses under nine bucks. And the kicker, as we finished off the first glass, and realized we couldn’t do much more and safely drive, our affable waiter proudly proclaimed that they serve wine by the half glass as well. Sold!

PLAY: Ela Carte with Ross and John

3AW Food - Eating Melbourne

3AW Food 3AW is Food: Melburnians love to eat so it's fortunate we live in the culinary capital of Australia. On this dedicated food page you will find the latest recipes by Bob Hart as well as Tony Leonard's Pub of the Week reviews. La Luna head chef Adrian Richardson also serves up a dish from his own cook book and food reviewer Ela Carte visits one of Melbourne's hottest eateries weekly

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