FED
Ground Floor, Ian Potter Centre
Federation Square
Melbourne
Ph: 9650 0511

Recently, I was well fed at Fed at the Fed.

To translate that from Melbournese into English:

Recently, I had a great meal at a new restaurant called Fed at the spectacular new Federation Square complex opposite Flinders Station over St.Kilda Road.

The ground floor restaurant with huge glass and metal angled vistas (like most of the project) actually faces Flinders Street and is close to the corner of Russell Street.

It is at the entrance to the Ian Potter Centre which is part of the new NGV Australia which houses collections of some of this country’s most famous artists.

Fed Square, as it has become known, is now attracting heaps of visitors and – from some quarters – still copping heaps of criticism.

Top-rating morning radio star Neil Mitchell gave the whole shebang a helluva of a pasting in his Herald Sun column recently.

Some negative things he claimed as fact were in fact opinion and I told him so in a fairly “robust” (as they say) debate on my own 3AW programme.

One thing he carped about were the “uneven” (his words) outback-coloured paving bricks. He virtually predicted an epidemic of elderly broken ankles.

In fact the paving is far easier to traverse than cobblestones or standard paving bricks. The ochres and browns and sandy Aussie Outback colours merely give an optical illusion of roughness.

And I am sure I have been there more times than Mr. Mitchell.

It seems Sir Hinchalot is slowly working his way through the bevy of new restaurants that eventually, I believe, will turn Federation Square into a foodies’ magnet like Crown and South Bank.

I’ve already reviewed Chocolate Buddha and voted with my feet a number of times for a bowl of noodles and some cold sake there. Recently, I said that the meal at Reserve – the centrepiece of the new Victorian Wine precinct – was the best I had reviewed in about a year.

Soon a futuristic new bar complex will open down on the river by Princes Bridge and the legendary Jacques Raymond is venturing away from his newly refurbished eating heaven in Windsor to open an Australian-flavoured restaurant. I don’t know much about it but if he uses exotic Outback ingredients – it should work. It did for Red Ochre in Adelaide and Big Red’s at The Rocks in Sydney. And no, he is not closing Windsor. He’s just expensively re-opened it.

But back to being fed at Fed. The décor is big and white and airy and the angles reflect – as they must – the whole philosophy of the architects’ smart-angled dreams.

I know that in my first review of a Fed Square eatery I referred to the place as looking at first like “ tinfoil in a tantrum”. But get inside it. It is an awesome use of space and glass and steel and stone.

They had me at Fed the minute I sat down. The waitress informed us one of the specials of the day was oysters. Smokey Bay oysters. Freshly shucked.

One of my lunch partners must have been hard of hearing. “ Did she say shucked?” She did.

I really didn’t pay attention to the rest of her spiel about the special wine vinaigrette sauce the chef had prepared for them because the order was already in-- just in case they ran out. Three out of four of us ordered oysters. We even convinced the fourth to try one. And he had never eaten an oyster in his life!

Hinchalot followers would know that Smokey Bay oysters, grown in icy, fast-moving, cleansing, briny water in South Australia, are from one of the top three oyster locations in the world. The others are both nearby: Coffin Bay and Streaky Bay.

At the risk of offending the hard-working chef I declined his dressing. We all opted for natural with a squeeze of fresh lemon and lime. One diner added a touch of freshly ground pepper.

The pick of the mains was an entrée ordered as a main. Rockling in a feather light tempura batter with Japanese summer salad and ponzu dressing. One of those dishes you look at and think “ why didn’t I order that”? Tasty and light for lunch with a good Riesling.

They have an oven-roasted eye fillet with an interesting fricassee of wild mushrooms and broad beans with a red wine jus.

I went for the spiced roasted duck. Partly because you never cook duck at home (I used to twenty years ago – even Peking Duck) and partly because of the bed of bok choy and pea shoots and an orange/carrot relish.

I probably should have gone for something lighter at lunch. Would be great for dinner.

But then came the dessert menu. We behaved like starved sugarholics.

There was pavlova with berries, Gippsland cream and a fresh raspberry sauce.

A stunning, seductive toffee-crusted crème brulee with some vanilla and almond shortbread.

And an ice-cream special that tasted creamy and honeyed and had crunchy bits of brioche threaded through it. We ordered the lot!

Talk about being well fed at Fed.

The problem that faces places like Fed and Reserve in their infancy is getting the word out. They have the jewels. They just have to let people know that those jewels are in a crown called Federation Square.

It would appear there are a few more precious culinary stones to come.

June 27, 2003