3 recommendations

I recommend this...

Tjanabi

Editorial Review

Editorial Review

Federation Square is unexpected. Looming large on Melbourne’s cityscape it offers an unlikely conjoining of somewhat confrontational contemporary architecture and accessible and welcoming public space; it looks very modern and yet with its undulating piazza paved, riverbed-like, with sandstone cobbles it feels as if it might have been around for a long time. The same goes for Tjanabi.

This ultra sleek restaurant nestled in the Square’s Atrium is populated by tables topped with huge, earthy, unfinished slabs of wood, reinforcing the blend of chic and wild that Tjanabi is. The food takes a similar turn, fusing European and Asian tastes with ingredients that have been a feature of the Australian food environment for thousands of years. Expect charcuterie such as smoked eel and lightly spiced kangaroo chorizo, tossed through rich, dense risotto. Crocodile might feature in a zingy green curry and, in keeping with the smoky scene, cold-smoked emu might appear alongside tempura-battered zucchini flowers plump with sharp goat’s cheese.  There are steaks too and other more conventional dishes for those who like their cuisine on the familiar side, and for those in a hurry there is a great $10 lunch special which might feature minute steak or lamb shanks and mash. Lovers of Victorian wine will find plenty to choose from here and for those who like it frothy the complete list of ripping beers from Gippsland’s own Grand Ridge brewery is on offer. Dessert has to be the podgy trapezoid of pannacotta peppered with wattleseed, which looks and tastes a little like nutty vanilla, rounded out by rumours of coffee – very moreish.

John Weldon, January 2008