Copper Pot

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105 Victoria Street, Seddon, 8590 3505

My score: 4/5

Eaten any snails lately? You should, and not just because they are an excellent excuse to marinate yourself in melted butter. Firm, salty sea snails (Tasmanian periwinkles) also offer a good reason to visit Copper Pot, the first restaurant from chef Ashley Davis. The menu says they’re served “how they should be” and I’d agree: bobbing in green-tinged shells, they’re meaty and unadorned, slow-cooked then lavishly loved up with garlicky butter. The snails are a signpost. Copper Pot bills itself as “a foodies’ roadtrip around Europe” and it visits some lesser lights: Croatia, Portugal and Germany as well as the power trio of France, Italy and Spain. The produce, by contrast, is a passionate, ethical exploration of Australia.

Bread should be a point of pride in a European restaurant: Copper Pot’s sourdough comes with schmaltz, a gleaming spread of duck and pork fat with crunchy fatty crumbs. I would bathe in it. Spaetzle with gruyere – think mac-and-cheese made by a storybook Alpine grandmother – is such exemplary comfort food that I took my shoes off to eat it. Spanish-style squid with ink-dyed black rice cooked in a balanced fish stock is the best hot wet rice I’ve had for a long time. Portuguese paprika-spiced chicken is cooked on the bone so it’s nice and juicy. Profiterjes, the Dutch lovechild of pancakes and profiteroles, ooze with chocolate hazelnut sauce.

A mural of a rotund Michelin man fills a wall of this one-room restaurant, a friendly guide to the continent, rather than a looming specter of the powerful restaurant guide. It sometimes feels that a chef only needs to pass through Heathrow airport for the words ‘Michelin star’ to pop up on their CVs. Ashley Davis isn’t one of those. He was head chef at London restaurant Helene Darroze when it climbed from one Michelin star to two and he stuck around for three years to retain those stars. Originally from Sunshine, Davis returned from Europe with his German wife (and business partner) Janine, to Pure South, a Tasmanian showcase restaurant in Southbank, lifting it to a Good Food Guide hat.

So Davis has the chops, not that he bangs on about it; he’d rather let his polyglot food do the talking. Copper Pot is articulate and enthusiastic, fuelled by varied food traditions, yet anchored in the pan-European notion that great food can be found anywhere, on country byways as well as in big cities and – why not? – in urban villages like Seddon.

See their website.

More European:

Emilia Trattoria, 360 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, 9670 7214.
Showcasing the food of Emilia Romagna, and particularly Modena, this all-day bar and restaurant is enormously appealing.

Restaurant Dansk, Level 3, 428 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, 9600 4477.
Danish food – such as lunchtime smørrebrød (open sandwiches) – is showcased at this hidden restaurant.

Hofbrauhaus, 18-28 Market Lane, Melbourne, 9663 3361.
It’s not just about the German beer here (though it mostly is). The food is sturdy and traditional: think pork knuckle, schnitzel and sausages.

First published in The Age, January 24th, 2016.