Emilia reviews a restaurant highly recommended by Melbourne’s top chefs
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Meaning “eat” in Mauritian Creole, I found Manzé through a fabulous Tik Tok account, Secondz- shoutout. They interview chefs and restaurant owners around Australia asking what the best restaurant in their city is. The heads of Public Wine Shop, Florian, Bar Liberty, Capitano, Above Board (my favourite bar btw) all say Manzé.
Owner, Nagesh Seethiah (ex-Capitano, Bar Rochford, Anchovy) was born in Mauritius, spending his childhood living the island life. He explains how Mauritius is filled with people of all different backgrounds but they unite in their language, this is reflected in the food- all different techniques, cuisines and flavours tied together with a fresh, native taste. When opening Manzé, Seethiah wanted to keep the values of fine dining – “good produce, finesse, attention to details, quality but less restrained, elitist which can be a barrier to entry and more flavour”
One of their co-owners is journalist Osman Faruqi (didn’t know this until after my visit!), he explains it as “a wild and unique blend of what you’re kind of familiar with from South Asian food but with an East African influence”
Manzé is a 24-seat wine bar, you can be seated at either a communal or surrounding stand alone tables. Bright art loaned from a local artist takes up the entirety of one wall space, lots of earthy tones fill the floors, decor and walls as well as pickled vegetables bordering the whole restaurant.
They champion their local growers, from the Yarra Ranges, Dog Creek Growers noting them throughout the menu.
There was a theme in all their dishes and their plating; vibrant, flavourful sauces with fresh bases- seafood, meat or commonly earthy ingredients.
Most of the starters used South Indian techniques for the base with Mauritius flavours. Starting with what they call a Idli (a type of savoury rice cake), I would liken it to shell shaped gnocchi made of kohlrabi (root vegetable) which they sat next to a coconut chutney and pickled onion. I’ve never really had anything like this but I loved the novelty and the flavours were amazing. Next, Muṟukk which is a savoury coil shaped disk that they’ve topped with a curry leaf chutney and pickled radish. Both these bite sized starters packed a punch as you could put the whole thing straight in your mouth you could really get all the flavours together. The crunchy base against the aromatic spice.
We happily moved our way through the bowl of Goolwa pippies with lemon pickles. The tartness of the citrus was cut by the pickling and the pippies were moreish as we quickly found the empty shell bowl balancing out. Something else different, a taro fritter with their signature Manzé hot sauce. The taro fritter resembled a small arancini ball but certainly didn’t taste like it, it was more of a vehicle for the hot sauce. All these starters perfectly illustrate what Manzé is about, creative, giving you something reminiscent of something else but with a twist.
For me, the must get is the whole blue swimmer crab with green chilli and sorrel butter. They pre cracked the crab and encouraged you to get your hands into it, the flesh was milky and the green chilli baste was so delicious.
Otway lamb with shallot, coriander and pepper glaze with ginger and rocket broth and steamed rice side quickly replaced our crabby fingers. The waitress advised us to take some rice on our plate, make a well and spoon some of the broth and lamb in. I love being told how to eat something, I mean that genuinely.
We picked the bones out of another sauce laden dish in the corner inlet flathead topped with masala. If I could jar any flavour from the whole night, it’d be this masala. The salad was a spicy slaw from the Dog Creek Growers
Dessert was sweetcorn pudding, coconut gelato and fresh figs. I’ll be honest, this wasn’t my favourite, whether it was the porridge-like texture or light flavour but considering most things I tried were either completely new dishes and for some completely new flavours, it’s not a bad result.
There’s two choices, the a la carte menu or the set menu at $75 a head. Most people in the restaurant chose the set menu choice but it does change every week. Prices were on the ‘foodie’ side of things, whole swimmer crab at $36, flat head at $42 but there’s also many $4-10 starters and salad.
The whole menu was gluten free, by chance. I guess the fresh produce paired with the island Marutian flavours lend themselves nicely to a naturally gluten free menu but I’ve seen this trend recently.