THE EUROPEAN

161 Spring St
Melbourne VIC 3000

Well this certainly is a nice little eatery. Tucked under the Supper Club/Siglo at the top end of town, the European is unassuming on the outside and from the inside makes you feel like you could be in Paris or Rome. Decor is romantic and cute, with a great international wine list!



Food is pretty top quality, with an emphasis on fresh produce. The buffalo mozzarella, tomato and basil entree was a definite standout. I had the fillet of kingfish with oyster and mussel escabeche, and yeah, it was pretty damn good. Fantastic escabeche I have to say. Everyone in our group enjoyed their meals, and they had a pretty good tira misu, something that is done so badly so often.


Unfortunately, our waiter was a rude, smug git. Which puts me off recommending this place to friends. We had some internationals in our group and when one of them failed to pronounce “crème brulee” correctly he laughed at her. It was so rude. Who cares if people don’t say things right, just fucking serve it you pompous arsehole! Rant over. Go there, but hope you don’t get the waiter I had!

PUNCH LANE

43 Little Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000

Ph (03) 9639 4944

Punch Lane was recommended to me by a girlfriend as my parents were coming to town and I wanted to go somewhere nice, but not too ‘weird’ or ‘different’ as my Dad is pretty fussy with his food. In this respect Punch Lane was perfect. Dad liked it, which meant Mum was happy too.

The staff at Punch Lane were outstanding. They knew their product, very friendly and seemed very passionate about good food. The wine list was also very good, lots of SA wines which I liked!!

We decided to share some entrees and order separate mains. We had some olives, dips and bread and a serve of asparagus with persian feta and black pepper zabaglione. I thought the asparagus was way overpriced as an entrée; it was $19 and there were 6 spears of asparagus on the plate. I thought that was taking the piss a little bit. But other than that the entrees were lovely.

For my main I ordered a prawn and pea risotto which had a nice flavour but I found the rice was a little too crunchy for my liking. You might even say it was undercooked. My best friend M had a lovely gnocchi with pesto, pecorino and ricotta stuffed zucchini flower, the sauce was just delicious. There was also a great scallop dish (with peas, cherry tomatoes and pancetta); fish, crispy duck confit and Dad had a rib-eye which he really enjoyed.

I would definitely recommend Punch Lane as a place to try (or take your parents if they are visiting from out of town!!) but unfortunately it did have one or two things that let it down food-wise. I don’t mind forking out a bit of cash from time to time, but I guess that when I’m paying over $30 for a main I do have much higher expectations than I otherwise would.