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The Kitchen Cat: Basement, 115-117 Collins Street (enter George Parade), Melbourne, 9639 7586
My score: 3.5/5
The Kitchen Cat has closed. Brooks now operates from this location.
In a time of extravagant chocolate creations, when eight year olds temper chocolate on national television, it’s bold to put a bowl of chocolate icecream on a dessert menu. No ganache, no oozy pudding, no glossy crisp-snap layers, just scoops of the good stuff, made with Anvers couverture from Tasmania. It’s good, too: creamy and rich but not devastating or cloying thanks to leavening bitterness from the cocoa. It speaks of the Kitchen Cat’s approach: tasty, honest and moderately priced. The more-or-less Italian food is nice but it doesn’t scream ‘look at me!’ You get the feeling that celeb chef owner Tobie Puttock thinks restaurants are about communing to eat and chat and slurp wine, not stressing your way to the top of a waiting list then screaming to be heard.
The Kitchen Cat was born in January but Puttock has been on the premises since 2006 when this place opened as Fifteen Melbourne, in the glare of TV lights, as part of the Jamie Oliver stable of restaurants that steered disadvantaged teens from trouble to kitchens. Puttock broke with Oliver late last year; he’s still working with at-risk youth through his Stepping Stone Foundation though there are none in the restaurant yet.
I like this room: it’s underground but spacious and it feels rustic and fun. It also has possibly the city’s most practical and comfortable banquettes, a display kitchen and no-nonsense paper tablecloths. The food is easily shareable but works as individual courses too. I love the big fat slabs of beetroot, layered with creme fraiche, red onion slivers and horseradish. Pig’s ear is sliced into slivers, crumbed and fried, and served with jaunty lemon and caper mayonnaise: think chips but chewy with a faint background porkiness. Conchigliette (tiny shells) are the starchy base for a light, fresh seafood pasta with great shellfish and plenty of dill. A massive rolled pork belly is succulent in parts, dry in others and the crackling is sadly soggy.
Service is friendly but a little uncertain: we heard about the specials from two people, a good charcuterie plate was introduced as ‘some different salamis’ and it was mighty hard to get the bill. Overall, the Kitchen Cat redeems small glitches with its straightforward approach to cooking and dining. It may not astound but leaving a restaurant with a perfect chocolate ice cream moustache signals a mighty pleasing Movember meal.
More chocolate:
Le Petit Gateau, 458 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, 9944 8893
Come for celebration cakes and sneaky sweet fixes. The brownie and passionfruit chocolate gateau is a signature and the dark choc-hazelnut hot chocolate has heaps of fans.
Monsieur Truffe, 351 Lygon Street, East Brunswick, 9380 4915
Thibauld Fregoni is gearing up to be Melbourne’s only chocolate manufacturer. Have an iced chocolate in the cafe and admire his amazing antique machinery.
Newmarket Hotel, 34 Inkerman Street, St Kilda, 9537 1777
The feisty Latino savouries have snaffled most of the attention here but the chocolate pot with dulce de leche makes me swoon more than a taco ever did.
First published in The Age, November 20, 2011
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