Smith and Daughters – Dani Valent

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175 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, 9939 3293

My score: 4/5

Well, that’s a relief. I don’t care how hot it gets now, because I’ve found the key dish for summer. It’s Smith and Daughters’ spiced melon salad: fat bricks of watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew are casually jumbled with pickled pineapple, jalapeno peppers and mint. It’s oh-so-fresh in attitude and flavour, hydrating and cold, chilli-spiked and sparky. I foresee baking hot north-wind days when this is all I want to eat.

The colourful salad is also a gateway vegan dish: even if you generally feel that a meal isn’t complete without flesh, you won’t miss it in this salad. And that’s more or less the mission of this rocking Fitzroy restaurant with a party-hard attitude: it’s all about letting vegan dining be a celebration of what it is rather than a dam-building exercise against what it isn’t. Most diners here aren’t vegetarian, let alone vegan, and the food is so exuberant and tasty that I bet no-one ever sits here daydreaming about steak. The cocktail list helps too – it’s a cracker.

Chef Shannon Martinez – a meat-eater, by the way – has been on a mission to improve vegan dining for around 15 years, first at the East Brunswick Hotel, where her vegan parmigiana went gangbusters, and later at the Gasometer, where her vegan dishes sat alongside meaty pub classics. She ran a vegan food stand at Collingwood’s People’s Market where she hit it off with Mo Wyse, a hospitality entrepreneur who’s also a staunch vegan. The pair opened Smith and Daughters nearly three years ago. It’s been an unmitigated hit, so much so that it’s spawned Smith and Deli in nearby Moor Street, and a just-released cookbook.

The current menu is something of a hits-and-memories parade, starring dishes that are also in the recipe book. There are even page numbers next to menu items so you can run straight home and make them yourself. It’s a generous gesture. The food is broadly Latin, derived from Martinez’s Spanish heritage and eating adventures in Mexico and Latin America.

I love the ceviche, with oyster mushrooms standing in for fish and plantain chips offering crisp starchy balance to the salty sourness of the marinated vegetables. The paella fritters are somewhere between croquette and arancini but they’re also a pea-studded, saffron-tinged homage to Martinez’ grandmother. The sopa seca (‘dry soup’) comes in a paella pan but it’s made with dry-fried then sauced up pasta with black beans and chipotle. It’s drizzled with lime-and-coriander-soused cashew cream. There are some mock meat dishes – garlic ‘prawns’ and tacos with ‘chorizo’ – but I reckon the out-and-proud vegan dishes are the best.

If “vegan dessert” sounds as fun as getting your legs waxed then you need the myth-busting pot of chocolate topped with peppery olive oil and flaked salt and served with crisp toast. It’s whipped with aquafaba (the magical chickpea soaking water that can be frothed like egg whites) so it’s fluffy and rich at the same time. For Martinez, this dish recalls the chocolate sandwiches her grandfather fed her as a child (what a guy!). She’s a big fan of reconnecting with the past through food and is conscious that being vegan can be isolating – not only are vegans eating differently from many people around them, but they can also disconnect from food customs that include now-not-eaten meat. That’s why she put on a vegan Christmas with mock turkey and trimmings at Smith and Deli.

Restaurants with missions can be po-faced but Smith and Daughters is anything but boring. It’s built on a sense of abundance rather than deficiency and a passionate belief that vegans deserve choice, fine booze and rollicking restaurants too.

See their website.

More Vegan:

Transformer, 99 Rose Street, Fitzroy, 9419 2022.
Come for beautiful vegetarian (and vegan) food in a plant-strung warehouse from the experienced team that brought us the Vegie Bar. The banquet menu is excellent value and makes meat-free feasting easy.

Matcha Mylkbar, 72A Acland Street, St Kilda, 9534 1111.
Come outside peak times to beat the queues and to get instant access to the fully vegan menu of meal-sized smoothies, pretend eggs and plant-based bowl food.

Trippy Taco, 234 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, 9415 7711.
Going vegan is easy at this meat-free Mexican joint, where the burritos, tacos and nachos are all filling and fresh. The grilled corn can be done with nut cheese too. Also in St Kilda.

Woodland House, 78 Williams Road, Prahran, 9525 2178.
Most fine dining restaurants will cater to vegan diners but stately and dignified Woodland House seems to take a special pleasure in the creative challenge. There’s always a vegetarian degustation on offer too.

First published in The Age, 27th November 2016

2018-05-04T15:51:35+10:00

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