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Corner Coventry and Montague Streets, South Melbourne, 9699 9600
My score: 4/5
A good pub meal makes life better, turns hearts fond, eyes bright and generally helps the earth spin at a jauntier angle. If you’re doubtful, fight the regulars for a table at O’Connell’s. You’ll see that I’m right.
The stately corner pub was built in 1873 as O’Connell’s Centenary Hotel. In 1990 it relaunched as one of Melbourne’s first gastropubs and, since then, it’s seen excellent chefs (most notably, Greg Malouf, Cath Kalka and Adrian Richardson) hone their styles and please the throngs. New owners and a smart refurb earlier this year have given new life to old bones. The beautiful front parlour has a snaking bar, the dining room is carpeted so conversation is possible and a large pavement area feels like the perfect spot for a staycation steak. Strong service speaks of a happy culture and bonhomie is served up with the same consistency as the food.
Chef Ian Alexander (ex-Gill’s Diner) started in spring but he hasn’t reinvented the menu, possibly because some changes would see South Melbourne erupt into revolution. There’s always a pot pie with a towering puff crust: it might be beef, Guinness and mushroom, pork shoulder and mustard, or chicken and leek, and it always comes with mashed potato and mushy peas. The comfort food theme continues with the veal schnitzel crumbed with parsley and pecorino, and a classy burger, at least one of which always seems to be waiting on the pass to be ferried to a salivating diner.
There’s joyous retro appeal in the iceberg lettuce dotted through the menu, and in dishes like ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers, salmon gravlax with dill crème fraiche and the choice of creamy peppercorn, red wine and mushroom sauce for the grass-fed steaks. More elaborate dishes include a confit pork shoulder rolled up with black pudding and scattered with crisp strips of pig ear. Rhubarb and rice pudding topped with cinnamon icecream is still trucking on in the warmer weather. The icecream is made here, as is the blood sausage, gravlax, sauces and chutneys. I think the honest toil of preparing stuff from scratch shines through in reliable food that delivers exactly what it promises without overreaching. The fact that O’Connell’s stays open right through the holidays is yet another reason to love it.
See their website.
More staying open:
St Ali North, 815 Nicholson Street, Carlton North, 9380 5499
If you’re buried under a pile of ripped wrapping paper on Christmas morning and in desperate need of a coffee, St Ali offers caffeination and more 365 days a year. Also St Ali, 12-18 Yarra Place, South Melbourne.
Orient East, 348 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, 9685 2900
Hotel dining rooms are safe bets for holiday openings but Orient East is better than most with its shady deck and hip take on Malaysian food.
T’relek, 116 Victoria Street, Richmond, 9427 1777
My favourite Vietnamese restaurant is closed from December 23 to 25 then open as normal. Try the beef in vine leaves and the calamari salad.
First published in The Age, December 22, 2013.
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