Amaru

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1121 High Street, Armadale, 9822 0144

My score: 4/5

Eating a multi-course tasting menu can feel like being bludgeoned by well-meaning butterflies. Each morsel is delicate and dancingly pretty, tickling the senses with glancing blows, and so modest in size it seems unlikely any pain could ensue. Then, all of a sudden, around course six, one notices deep bruising to the appetite, desensitised taste buds and general torpor. How can butterflies be so brutal?

Amaru’s butterflies are more restrained, its dishes nicely judged, individually, as a progression and as a cumulative experience. You will not leave hungry but you won’t feel battered either. Owner and chef Clinton McIver has had plenty of opportunity to think about this style of dining; he worked as sous chef at Vue de Monde and his own 30-seat degustation-only restaurant has just clocked up a year of business. It feels confident, ambitious and hospitable; manager Hee-Won Chai (ex-Attica) is the droll and attentive foil to McIver’s nimble food.

The dining room is earthy and intimate with well-spaced tables, most with a view of the corner kitchen. A keen eye for detail extends to the accoutrements: the plates are bespoke and there are plans to commission cutlery too.

Appetite-awakening snacks kick off the meal with acidity, crunch and freshness. A seed cracker is served with whipped roe – it’s like a fancy taramasalata. Sleek, silky duck ham is rolled into squat cylinders for picking up with the fingers. Pureed onion is turned into a wafer and topped with a lightly smoky mix of yoghurt, cured garfish and a scattering of petals. Flowers can be twee but these work as food as well as garnish.

Amaru’s dishes are rich in ideas but it’s food for eating not a showcase of the chef’s cleverness and the menu is as produce-driven as a country kitchen. Shitake mushrooms – some marinated, some slowly cooked in garlic butter – are served with chawanmushi, a wobbly Japanese custard, and sparkling broth poured at the table. A glistening prawn is brined, lightly grilled to a just-cooked gleam and seasoned with indigenous Davidson plum powder and finger lime; the fried legs are boosted by a dusting of prawn head salt. It’s subtle and powerful all at once

Venison is often a watery chore to eat but not here. Aged for two months on the bone until it’s dry, dense and almost jellified, the meat is briefly grilled over charcoal to achieve a caramelised crust and absolutely rare interior. Blackberry is a good if unsurprising accompaniment but there’s also hazelnut praline, an early indication of McIver’s propensity for blurring savoury and sweet.

How do you feel about eating dirty potato? That’s what McIver calls his crisp potato skin bowl filled with potato ice cream, dusted with roasted wattleseed, potato chip powder and dehydrated chocolate mousse rubble. It’s an unusual but successful segue to the desserts. Amaru opened last year with a strawberry and mozzarella dessert; a new iteration rounds out the current menu. Barbecued strawberry puree, buffalo mozzarella ice cream, fragrant pepper and toasty, nutty buckwheat make for a summery and sophisticated sweet salad.

Complex contemporary food can distance the diner from their dinner but at Amaru you feel like someone is cooking you a tasty meal, not engaging in esoteric scientific wrangling. Combine that with the likelihood that you’ll leave with a spring in your step, not butterfly bruises, and you’ve got a sensitive and noteworthy restaurant.

See their website.

More Contemporary Australian:

Igni, Ryan Place, Geelong, 5222 2266.
A serene laneway restaurant, an open kitchen and an exciting tasting menu that’s mostly from the grill: I’m a big fan. Aaron Turner’s Igni is great value too.

IDES, 92 Smith Street, Collingwood, 9939 9542.
The food and wine plays with expectations but there’s also a feeling of being in safe and hospitable hands at this energetic and exciting restaurant.

Lûmé, 226 Coventry Street, South Melbourne, 9690 0185.
Wacko filmmaker David Lynch is quoted on the restaurant’s website, a signal to Lûmé’s daring and unconventional approach. A new bar offers a more casual experience.

Press Club, 72 Flinders Street, Melbourne, 9677 9677.
The curved booths say luxe but George Calombaris’s food is playful and fun. If you want an affordable taste, consider a two-course weekday lunch for $35.

First published in The Age, 12th February 2017.