KEY POINTS:
Everywhere you turn in Melbourne, there's yet another outstanding restaurant-cafe-diner. Here's a few places where you can eat within waddling distance of Wicked:
The Press Club
Actually, I wouldn't recommend eating here before the theatre because you need plenty of time to give the experience your unbridled attention. This is by far one of the best restaurants I have ever dined at, in the world. Opened by chef George Calombaris on the ground floor of the Herald-Weekly Times building, it features a bar on one side of the foyer and restaurant on the other.
The menu, based on Calombaris' classic Greek training, is out of this world - try the tasting menu where you can sample a succession of tiny-scale mezedes (tastes). I can close my eyes and recall the red capsicum icecream, the pistachio biscuit topped with cumin roasted beetroot and yoghurt cheese, the tiny sliver of calamari wrapped around a toothpick, the lemony pickled cabbage, the scallops atop a little cushion of black pudding ...
The service is warm and ultra-efficient, and you can also try lunch specials, a la carte dining and lighter menus in the bar.
The Press Club: 72 Flinders St.
Maha Bar& Grill
Four blocks from the Press Club, former apprentice Shane Delia has gone into partnership with Calombaris to present a menu that marries his training in French gastronomy, his Maltese background and the Lebanese cuisine of his wife Maha's heritage. "Soufra" is Maha's "sharing" menu, for lunch or dinner, customised for your own tastes, while the Sa'hra is the evening feast.
Cocktails are pretty fine too.
Maha Bar & Grill: 21 Bond St.
Fifteen
Melbourne Jamie Oliver's latest Fifteen venture was big on television earlier this year, but walk past his Melbourne eatery and you could easily miss it. Listed with a Collins St address, it's actually down an alleyway. After dining at The Press Club the night before, we weren't feeling overly ravenous but a crisp-skinned baramundi on rosti and a slow-cooked, melt in the mouth, ox cheek, served with a creamy potato mash, were perfectly cooked.
Fifteen's reservation system is in disarray after a fire destroyed its records a couple of weeks ago. We recommend you give it a try; the food and service is good, 30 per cent of the profits go towards the foundation which helps troubled youth, and the third intake of trainees has just started.
Fifteen Melbourne: Basement, 115-117 Collins St (enter via George Pde).
Hopetoun Tea Rooms
Quite frankly, you might be sick of all this fine dining lark, so if you want food that is simple and old-fashioned in an entirely unpretentious place, you can't go wrong with this quirky little locale in the heritage-listed Block Arcade.
It started life in 1892 as the Victorian Ladies' Work Association tea rooms 1893-1907, and the menu reflects its origins. A nice pot of tea, crumpets with honey, scones with jam and cream, asparagus rolls, welsh rarebit, toasted fingers, ice cream sundaes, and the most amazing cakes. Cheap as chips and great to take the kids before a Wicked matinee.
Hopetoun Tea Rooms: Block Arcade, Collins-Elizabeth Sts; they don't do websites
