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Marmelo – Melbourne, City – Saturday 8 March 2025 – Dinner

Once a year it is tradition for the boys to go out for a fancy dinner following the races on the March long weekend, formerly known as Super Saturday. In fact, it is such a tradition that referring it to as “the boys” was once quite reasonable, but now it is better monikered as “the gents”. We’ve had some beauties! Memorable meals, and memorable moments; some even infamous.

When a group of men turn up to a restaurant for dinner there is a different mannerism that comes from the entire service experience, from the greeting, to the banter during dinner, to the ending, which has been fuzzy in our memory on occasion. Tonight it is almost all positive, with a nice pace and vibe to the evening. Marmelo is definitely a good place for a group.

We arrived early and went below to try the bar, Mr Mills. We already knew we were in for an expensive evening, and the drink prices at Mr Mills confirmed our expectation. Somehow, there is no cucumber downstairs or upstairs, so Chef immediately took off a point, but lime in a Hendricks is fine in any case. My Voyager Chenin Blanc was a nice cleansing start after several beers and champagnes at the races.

Once upstairs, by now we were technically a little late, but for some reason we still had to wait a bit longer for our table. Any minor complaints about the evening ended here, as the forthcoming food, drinks, and service were all terrific. We had some epic starters like the Murray cod croquette that is sure to be a continual feature, to the utterly divine spanner crab tart. The Portuguese offerings pack plenty of flavour given the star ingredient of the tart is known for its subtlety; the prominence of the spanner crab showing excellent technique in the kitchen.

Turning to one of the themes in this restaurant, fire takes centre stage upon the delicate skin of calamari, and elevating it to greatness as a result. Alongside, the Skull Island prawns are diced in an acorda (diced bread, coriander, garlic, and egg), with scallops, and pipies. It’s nice, and it’s different, but out of the dishes for the evening it is my least favourite.

Washing these dishes down to begin is a grape variety that I have not tried to my knowledge before. This Encruzado comes from the Dao region of Portugal, and is by Impecavel. It is vibrant and versatile with the starters and entrees, and thoroughly enjoyable. Next we turn towards an equally versatile Italian red for the mains, which is luscious, in the form of Centanni Rosso, consisting of Sangiovese and Montepulciano.

The mains were all impressive. The highlight was the O’Connor rib eye. Thoroughly seasoned, licked by the flame, and every bite was melting in my mouth. I could give or take the peppers with it, but they were nice enough. The Kurobuta pork promised to be just as tender, and it certainly was. This must be the best value offering on the menu. Throw in a delightfully cooked fig, and you have a wonderful pig and fig dish.

Last but not least, the wood roasted cockerel reminds us of the impact the Portuguese can have on perfectly cooked chicken, that in some people’s eyes is closely on the border line to undercooked. The result is juicy deliciousness. I had enjoyed so much food that sides were not a priority, but special mention to the chickpeas and spinach which Jarrod rated as one of his favourite dishes of the night. The potatoes, while perfectly cooked, didn’t need the sauce, making for a soft texture when some crunch would have been appreciated.

It was time for dessert, and even with a generous amount of food through the savoury courses, we were ready to get stuck in. Chef Simon and I shared the wood fired olive oil cheesecake. It was big and rich, and could easily satisfy four people having a taste of dessert. We also had a “pastels de nata” which was the most delicious and most overpriced Portuguese custard tart you can imagine at $16. I guess you need some give and take!

Guy loved his tiny chocolate cup with house made ginja berry liqueur and Amarena cherries, and Jarrod also enjoyed the “Textures of milk”. Some Malvasia Madiera hit the spot with dessert, as a further nod to Portuguese wine (this time one of its autonomous regions). Needless to say we were all pleased with a tremendous dinner, not least of all Simon who had picked the restaurant for this year’s edition of our traditional catch up.

Marmelo
https://www.marmelorestaurant.com.au
130 Russell Street, Melbourne
Open Tuesday to Sunday for lunch and dinner
03 7035 2999
@marmelorestaurant

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Duende – Leederville – Friday 24 June 2016 – Dinner

You know a restaurant is doing something right when you, and your pesky friends, have changed the booking four times, yet you continue to be accommodated. As we rock up to Duende, with barely a spare chair observed (other than our table for eight plus a baby), we are even more thankful our initial booking of five was able to be changed.

It is a big catch up with old uni friends and some of our other halves. We have many reasons to share a few drinks and a meal and as usual it has been too long. It is for this reason that I completely forgot to get the camera out, so this particular review is bereft of any of my amateur photography.

A couple of Moritzs in and we have started to be served some of the dishes we decided to order. The idea is more to share some food over a few drinks, rather than a big meal, so we order some smaller share plates, and not the reasonably priced banquet. The croquettas are a nice start (as usual), and we also have one each of the mini-paellas, which are single serves wrapped in a vine leaf with prawn and chorizo mixed through the rice.

The staff were great all night, and we are encouraged to share one particular platter which turns out to be a better liked dish than the marinated white anchovies (which a few of us are suckers for, but several others are not at all keen!) The platter contained chorizo, jamón serrano, longaniza (Spanish sausage), guindilla peppers (traditional Basque pepper), and caperberries. The patatas bravas are served as whole roasted gourmet potatoes, which is a positive touch, but the sauce could have been a bit more generous (noting that it is tradition to smother it on).

Towards the end the chargrilled octopus, chorizo, kipfler potato with squid ink aioli is superb, especially the chargrilled octopus. At the same time we had the Brussel sprouts, confit white beans, heirloom tomatoes and baked ricotta which again was a combination a bit outside the box, working well as we had a few beers and wines. We settle on these as enough for the savouries, meaning our caution for the banquet was warranted.

For dessert we shared some chocolate tarts, and the doughnuts. Having been told there were five doughnuts in each serve I should have known they were going to be tiny. Luckily, with the injection of either jam and/or crème patisserie, they were absolutely delicious. The chocolate tart was terrific too, but most chocolate tarts are.

It has been many years since I’ve enjoyed the offerings of Duende. When it opened it was certainly a trend setter, and now it seems that many years later it has settled into a comfortable and lingering groove of its own.

Duende Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato