Melbourne: Meat & Wine Co – Southbank

This place came highly recommended. And given my affinity with Squires Loft and Rare, I was dubious as to whether this place could actually knock these other restaurants off the top of the rankings. One sentence: Meat cooked in Meat. Holy Moly!

Location

I’ve now eaten here a couple of times and both instances they were amazing. I always have the 120 day aged grain fed 350 gm steak. The first time I added the blue cheese sauce, which is what I always got from Squires. However, upon tasting the meat, I wish I could have returned the sauce. The meat was cooked in meat, a technique I only came across from the 4 hour chef – check out the book. Whilst it’s about cooking, you can learn so much more.

120 Day Aged Steak

As always, the meat was succulent and tender. Asking it for medium, it was the right balance between cooked and rare. And at no time did I ever feel that it was ever over the top or had any faults that it was compensating for.

And whilst steaks at any restaurants is an “experience”, at least here, if you avoid the sauces – you can get a very reasonably priced meal for under $50.

I would also recommend the affagato. But only if you don’t need to go anywhere in a hurry. The kick in this thing…well, it’s got a good enough kick. Well presented and served in a stylish cocktail glass, I almost felt like I didn’t want to consume any of it and just watch it from a far.

The one thing that I would say that kind of let this place down – was the service. In both instances that I have eaten here, they only ever came around to fill the water once. I wished they’d just come back and re-fill our jug without needing to ask. No matter that we didn’t order any drinks (and even when we did), something as little as that just goes to add a subtle but sweet garnish to finish the evening. I noticed it the first time, the second time, a friend of mine noticed. So it was quite intriguing that they have done this. I am willing to have a go one more time and see if they continue to do this. Maybe it’s a policy to get people out the door, who knows? Not a nice thing to do any way you look at it. But a minor smudge in a grand scheme of things.

TDT : 4.0/5