Messmates

Messmates Dining feels more like a London wine bar than your typical Victorian destination diner. It’s a family affair, owned by siblings Chris and Jodie Odrowaz, and their respective partners Jess Odrowaz and Michael Clarke. These four have honed their hospitality prowess over years in the industry. Chris (ex-Square and Compass, Mammoth Cafe) and Jess used to run the Warragul cafe Main Street. While co-chefs Jodie and Michael, who met while working at Vue de Monde, worked at Michelin-starred London restaurants including The Square and Gordon Ramsay’s Petrus, and staged at influential New York restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

At Messmates, the menu takes cues from classic French and Italian cuisine – with Gippsland produce at the heart of each dish. Standouts include a comforting half roast chicken served with gascogne butter and peppers; chicken liver parfait with quince; and tagliatelle tossed through green sauce. There’s “fancy ricotta” made using crème fraîche from local micro-dairy Butterfly Factory Cheese; crudités made from locally grown produce; meat from small local farms; and seafood from South Gippsland’s Corner Inlet Seafood.

The wine list comprises around 100 bottles from local producers such as Patrick Sullivan, and importers. There are also rotating tap beers, cocktails, and spritzes on taps. Digestifs, including Beechworth Bitters amaro and Pennyweight Gold fortified riesling, are highly encouraged.

Jess is behind Messmates’ European-bar-inspired fit-out and the four owners renovated the former church together. It’s warm and elegant with a small open kitchen, curved leather banquette seats, dark cabinetry, earth tones throughout and a centrepiece six-metre-long terrazzo-topped bar. Light floods through floor-to-ceiling windows by day and at night. The name nods to the local messmate tree (its wood was used to make the restaurant’s tabletops).