Green Goose – Dani Valent

Back to Restaurant Reviews

7 Station Street, Malvern, 9576 0044

My score: 3.5/5

Ho-ho-horrible shopping can be made bearable when it’s punctuated with a visit to a good cafe. As well as the physical refuel, replenishing time out of the retail ruckus is an opportunity to wonder if the person who has everything might really love that inflatable vase or goblin-themed candle snuffer, or whether you’re risking regrettable regifting come Christmas 2011.

Green Goose (can we please stop with the bird names now?) is a new cafe in a cute railway strip with doll hospital, fruitique, junk/treasure shop and eco-haircutter. The cafe is neat and comfortable, just off Glenferrie Road but away from the fray. There are seating zones out front near the promising sandwich display (Dench bread, good combos, gluten-free options), tucked away at a large table just begging for gossipy girls’ lunches, or out back in the tidy courtyard.

Owners Con and Gabi Antonopoulos have Greek, Serbian and Hungarian backgrounds but Gabi has been working in Italian cafes for 20 years and that’s the skew to the food. (However, she’s looking ahead to Goose goulash next winter.) Zucchini fritters, thin and crisp, are hidden in a zesty fennel, orange and rocket salad. Puff pastry is layered with goat’s cheese, caramelised onion and roasted capsicum strips to form the smart mille foglie. Penne is tumbled with smoked trout, broad beans and mascarpone to create a simple, satisfying dish that will carb-load tired shoppers.

A ‘little geese’ section of the menu looks after kids with simple – but not fob-off – food like chicken strips and egg on toast. Children are unlikely to look askance at the pint-sized but punch-packing fruit tarts, which is fine because that gives the grown-ups a good go at the baklava, made by Con’s mum Voula. It’s fresh, nutty and loose and is served with an entirely unnecessary but welcome jug of cream. Voula also makes the squishy-squashy spanakopita with her own filo pastry and a mix of leaves: dandelion, leek and silverbeet all play a role in my new gold standard for spinach pie.

Shoppers and coffee attract like seagulls and chips so it’s lucky Gabi has made a few caffe lattes in her time. Back in 1997 she was the first female barista at Caffe e Cucina; since then her tamping grounds have included Vini Spuntini in its Chadstone and Elsternwick incarnations and Doncaster spin-off Caffe Moda. She knows shoppers, she knows coffee, she knows food: no wonder this Goose is good.

First published, The Age, November 28, 2010

2017-09-18T18:35:44+10:00

Leave A Comment

© Dani Valent 2024