Teller
Poor Teller. The big Brunswick East bar and restaurant, from long-time publican Melanie Aldred, opened just a few weeks before Melbourne was plunged back into lockdown. It’s gamely fighting on with a takeaway gastropub menu with some western Mediterranean flourishes such as herby chermoula and muhammara, a spicy red capsicum sauce.
More recently Teller launched a Friday and Saturday night fish’n’chip menu, which stretches beyond what your average corner store fries up. In addition to the expected battered flake and grilled calamari, there are freshly shucked Coffin Bay oysters with chardonnay vinaigrette, bowls of crisp white bait and school prawns, and house-made potato cakes with malt vinegar mayo.
The venue is also bottling its own signature cocktails to take home, and pouring craft beers in 750-millilitre longnecks and growlers to go. That’s Friday night sorted.
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This Mediterranean bistro and bar, in South Yarra, is also quite new to town. It’s boxing up elegant six-dish feasts for two, comprised of three entrees, one main, one side and one dessert. The dishes are ready to go but require a few finishing touches.
This week, $150 will bring you entrees of cured ocean trout with smoked salmon roe, poached seafood Catalan with preserved ginger and Padron peppers, and Fremantle octopus, baked potato and chorizo oil. Main is slow-cooked Angus short rib and mushrooms with a side salad of radicchio, persimmon, chervil and parmesan. Dessert is a wicked trifle of dark chocolate mousse, blood orange caramel and hazelnut cake.
Matched drinks are available for an extra $40, $50 or $70, depending on how far you want to push the boat out. Order by 4pm for next-day delivery.
Mammoth
In neighbouring Armadale, a light-endowed corner cafe has launched its first nighttime menu, including takeaway cocktails. And it’s filled with the kind of comfort foods we love to eat on the couch after a hard week. There’s a fried-chicken burrito, a hearty pork and veal ragu, pan-fried gnocchi with spinach and pepita pesto, haloumi nuggets and a cheeseburger with caramelised onions. Some of Mammoth’s daytime classics are also on call: the poke bowl, Saigon noodle bowl, falafel bowl and fried-chicken burger. Finally, there’s desserts: chocolate mousse, Eton mess or pecan pie with Chantilly cream.
Meat Frankie x 400 Gradi
In 2019 Brunswick East pizzeria 400 Gradi entered the Guinness Book of Records by squeezing 154 different types of cheese onto a single pizza. It was ridiculous then (how would you even taste all the types?) and it’s even more ridiculous now that Gradi has collaborated with next-door burger joint Meat Frankie to create a 155-cheese double cheeseburger. (The 155th cheese is the burger’s neon orange American cheese.)
Still, isn’t this the kind of novelty we all need right now, to lighten the tedium of lockdown? Yes? Then head to Meat Frankie from midday on Saturday September 18 only, with $20 and an empty stomach. Each burger contains two patties and unlimited portions of lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion, jalapenos and grilled mushrooms.
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