This week’s Hot List Activity

• Added: Jamsheed
• Most trending restaurant: Maison Batard
• Most trending bar: Le Splendide
• Most trending cafe: Moon Mart

Even five years after opening, Preston’s Jamsheed remains one of a kind. After Noisy Ritual, it’s only the second cellar door we know of within the bounds of metro Melbourne – and the only one with a rockstar winemaker at the helm. Winemaker Gary Mills founded the label in 2003 after gaining experience in Margaret River, California and Oregon. He’s never bothered using terms like “natural” and “minimal-intervention” but, except for the usual preservative sulfur, his highly regarded wines don’t contain added enzymes, acids or other chemicals.

While the airy warehouse has had various food pop-ups in the past, it got a major shot in the arm this month with the appointment of chef Frankie Hadid, whose first gig was at their dad’s shawarma shop in Venezuela.

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“My parents worked hard to keep me out of trouble and encouraged me to pursue what they, as Syrian migrants in Venezuela, thought was better than working in a kitchen,” says Hadid, who moved to Australia to get a degree in business and worked casual kitchen jobs while studying.

But not just any casual kitchen jobs: Gray and Gray Bread and Wine, All Are Welcome and Manze. This solid foundation means Hadid’s Clara Luna, named for the venue their chef mum ran in Venezuela, is one of the hottest places to eat in Melbourne right now, and a shoo-in for the Hot List.

Dishes draw heavily on Hadid’s background, including ceviche, arepas with salsa verde, and deep-fried fish wings with tahini. But we’re crushing hardest on pippies and chippies, a clever take on a chipi chipi, a popular Venezuelan clam soup. It sees pineapple and chilli slow-cooked in the venue’s wood fire as it heats up early in the morning to make a salsa. Pippies are blasted at 300 degrees Celsius to order, and put on the chippies with the salsa.

Hadid has some handy opinions about wine pairing, too. They reckon Jamsheed’s 2023 Apricity Vermentino is a perfect match for pippies and chippies, and the fish wings and ceviche. Likewise, they recommend the easy-drinking Flor de Corazón to go with the current menu’s lamb shish and woodfired tomatoes.