Dan Stock restaurant reviews in the Melbourne Herald Sun

2016
28 June 2016 Tulum - "It’s accomplished and exciting, enlivening and completely enjoyable cooking that somewhat manages to be at once comforting and clever."  Our summary HERE
2015
13 January 2015 Cerberus Beach House - "it’s a brillian brilliant bargain." Our summary HERE
20 January 2015 Yabby Lake - "Lunch, too, is a thing of quiet beauty. ... you’ll find some of the best casual dining to be found along the peninsula." Our summary HERE
27 January 2015 L'Hotel Gilan - "It really is a perfect neighbourhood venue." Our summary HERE
3 February 2015 Botherambo - "Safe and sanitised, Botherambo captures the new Richmond perfectly. It is, of course, a huge hit with the suburb’s new rich." Our summary HERE
10 February 2015 The Lincoln - "... turning out some good, often excellent, food. ... Unexpected twists, such as ocean trout cured in coffee , highlight an adventurousness to be applauded." Our summary HERE
17 February 2015 East - "East gives diners a new vocabulary for Chinese flavours." Our summary HERE
24 February 2015 Tippo 00 - "The food and service at this pasta bar are simply the best." Our summary HERE
3 March 2015 Minamishima - "Yes, you will be served arguably the freshest and most skilfully prepared fish you can find in this city, but you will pay very handsomely for the privilege." Our summary HERE
10 March 2015 Mr Lawrence - "There would be everything right about coming here just for pizza, but there’s lots to like through the rest of the menu." Our summary HERE
17 March 2015 Magic Mountain Saloon - "... to write this off just as a bar for the young and the thirsty would do you no favours — and you’d miss out on some of the very best Thai flavours going in this town." Our summary HERE
24 March 2015 Bahari - "Bahari has good, hone honest food at good, honest price prices." Our summary HERE
31 March 2015 Meat, Fish, Wine - "It might have a simple name and mission statement, but there’s still some way to go before the Meat Fish Wine offering matches its ambitions. It does what it says on the tin, sure, but it needs to do more." -  Our summary HERE
7 April 2015 Sagra - "...cooking can err on the fussy side of rustic, with a tendency to finish dishes with vincotto, it’s generally solid, and the produce very good ... Though Sagra has its faults, none are insurmountable, and you’d be well happy to have this in the area if you lived here. Exactly what Malvern needs, indeed.." Our summary HERE
14 April 2015 Highline - "Laudable farm-to-plate philosophy gets lost during delivery." Our summary HERE
21 April 2015 Maha - "The food ... has undergone a tweak or two, but retains at its heart a generosity of spirit for which the cuisine is famed, though with a modern twist or two." Our summary HERE
28 April 2015 Ovest - "While pizza may be the hero at Ovest, the lasagne is worth a visit alone." Our summary HERE
5 May 2005 Donovans - "Sharing and caring — that’s what the Donovans do and why people come. ... I’d forgot what a pleasure it is to eat three actual courses — no “designed to share” malarky here." Our summary HERE
12 May 2015 Rosa's Kitchen - "Offal is not a dirty word at Rosa’s Canteen, ... Simple and delicious, that’s always been Rosa’s way. This canteen for the court class is no exception." Our summary HERE
19 May 2015 Transformer - "It’s cool without being overly so, on a mission without making a show. Transformer heralds a new way of thinking about vegetarian food. And that’s good for all of us." Our summary HERE
26 May 2015 Cook and Norman Trattoria - "... there’s some excellent cooking going on in this trattoria." Our summary HERE
2 June 2015 Lost Heaven - "... a meal that ... showed a decidedly deft hand on the numbing heat that is the cornerstone of the second-most famous style of Chinese cooking." Our summary HERE
9 June 2015 The Roving Marrow - "... a trolley laden with all manner of bites will be quick to trundle by, with bigger dishes ordered off a traditional menu. ... There’s clever elegance to these dishes... The trolley might be the gimmick to get you through the door, but it’s the rest of the sophisticated package that will have you rolling back in." Our summary HERE.
16 June 2015 Flower Drum - "Flower Drum is so far from world class it’s an insult to our best restaurants that it’s still mentioned in the same breath. It’s trading on — and charging for — the goodwill of decades of made memories." Our summary HERE and a story on different opinions HERE
23 June 2015 Woody P - "So #whatiswoody? It’s definitely a lot of great food, keenly priced, in elegantly casual surrounds. Woody just needs to reconcile its duelling personalities into the fun, generous whole it could so." Our summary HERE
30 June 2015 Din Tai Fung - "Din Tai Fung is worth every minute in the queue." Our summary HERE
7 July 2015 Deja Vue - "... it’s the perfect time experience some Deja Vue and remember what makes French fare so fab." Our summary HERE
14 July 2015 Anchovy - "Billed as “Modern Asian, modern Australian, a little bit in between”, this new addition to Bridge Rd is doing its level best to reinvigorate what dining Asian in Richmond means in 2015." Our summary HERE
21 July 2015 Harry's Bar - "The food at Harry’s Bar is good – often excellent — but locals already know that. A few easy tweaks to the rest of the offering and this little local could be a real neighbourhood gem that transcends suburban borders, drawing fans from afar. If only just for those meatballs." Our summary HERE
28 July 2015 Saint Urban - "A new wine bar is filled with heavenly pleasures. ... It’s the local Richmond did didn’t know it needed and now can’t live without." Our summary HERE
4 August 2015 Sugar Prawn - "... the menu favours the brave and adventurous. ... there’s much that’s easily shared on this menu that you’d be hard pressed not to find many things to like." Our summary HERE
11 August 2105 Lume - "Lume feels very much like a restaurant created by and for the young with a degree of insouciance coming from the kitchen, though it patently is yet to cope with demand." Our summary HERE
18 August 2015 The French Milkbar - "Capturing the 'humble things done well' lessons of Lyon but seen through the prism of 20915 Melbourne ... this is a special little spot that's serving lunch with heart and soul." Our summary HERE
25 August 2015 Abbondante - "Just one of the most honest and enjoyable meals I’ve had all year. Kooky and quirky as all get out, it’s the perfect antidote to shiny and new. ... It’s a small venue with small ambitions — to provide honest to goodness food without fuss or ceremony. A place for locals to eat well, drink better and leave with a smile." Our summary HERE
1 September 2015 Estelle by Scott Pickett - "Not only is the space one of the most deeply dramatic and, frankly, stunning dining rooms in Melbourne, but it’s where Scott is serving up a meal of transcendent beauty. ... ESP delivers a definitive Melbourne dining experience and is a new jewel in our crown." Our summary HERE
8 September 2015 Ladro Tap - "A once great icon has gone to fat and needs help.... I’m fascinated at how the institutionalised knowledge of a decade’s pizza-making knowhow has been lost and for such pizzas to be served within these once-hallowed walls." Our summary HERE
15 September 2015 Lee Ho Fook - "There’s heaps to like. ... juxtaposition of exuberant flavours next to the subtle and refined ..." Our summary HERE
22 September 2015 Ezard @Levantine Hill - "Yes, this is a place where people chopper in for lunch, ... But it’sit s also a place to bring the kids in for a Sunday ay lunch of wagyu sliders and cured meats and elegantly hearty fare in the allday dininging room that’s keenly priced to welcome all. But it’s the signature restaurant where the food and wine come together to dance, with the wines taking the lead and Teage’s Asian accents refined over years at his other restaurants (Gingerboy, ezard) replaced with European restraint the better to match those drops." Our summary HERE
29 September 2015 Dexter - "This little 'meat and buns' joint in Preston certainly has surprises in spades. ... And those buns – not burgers – are seriously good." Our summary HERE
6 October 2015 111 Spring Street - "It might be one of the strangest dining experiences you’ll have right now. It’s also one of the most delicious." Our summary HERE
13 October 2015 Toko Melbourne - "Though disposable chopsticks cheapen the beautiful glazed ceramic crockery, the package is otherwise all very polished and stylised, surprisingly well-priced and certainly delicious. While it might not be the most heart-thumpingly exciting new offering of the year, it’s accomplished and has clearly struck a chord." Our summary HERE
20 October 2015 Emilia Trattoria - "A bustling trattoria doing a good line in Italian-accented breakfast, city lunches and lingering dinners." Our summary HERE
27 October 2015 Lady Caroline - "It’s now buzzy and bustling with an unapologetic love of authentic heat that’s delicious." Our summary HERE
3 November 2015 Lamaro's Bodega - "Greenvale Farm up Ararat way is giving the Spanish a good run for their pork, feeding their rare-breed free-range pigs the same acorn diet that creates the famed Spanish Jamon on Iberico and that turns up as a plate of sublime beauty at Lamaro’s Bodega." Our summary HERE
10 November 2015 Enquire Within - "... a restaurant that’s been created with selfimposed obsolescence. Every year, so we’re told, this restaurant will close, to be born anew with a new look, new concept, new chef, new name, in order, presumably, to create new buzz. ... And while party pies and a sundae with fries leads the dude food charge, an Asian-inspired beef short rib, or beef tartare with smoked yolk, turn a frontal assault into something altogether more elegant and accomplished. ... The concept seems like it was hatched late at night after many drinks. The menu, likewise. But somehow it works." Our summary HERE
17 November 2015 Ichi Ni Na Na - "It’s a menu is built for sharing with little plates priced for ordering with abandon. ... Though there are much better places for partytime Japanese — Toko in Prahran, for instance — you won’t find it served at all hours or atthis price. It’s cheap, cheerful and certainly fun, and though it still needs work, I applaud the open open-all hours vision." Our summary HERE
8 December 2015 Hunter and Barrel - "As for a company that has much experience in opening restaurants, Hunter & Barrel is, so far, manifestly subpar." Our summary HERE
15 December 2015 Dinner by Heston Blumenthal - "... a chef who obsessively creates food that’s all about flavour. Powerful, eye-rollingly delicious food that definitively, consistently answers the question: does this taste as good as it could? So while the Fat Duck popup was the headline-grabber, it’s the permanent Dinner by Heston Blumenthal that’s the real win for Melbourne." Our summary HERE
2014
28 October 2014 - Polperro - "... a menu as fittingly stylish as the new space"
4 November 2014 - Coppersmith Hotel - "... there’s a bar menu that ticks off the classics with class"
9 November 2014 - Lucy Lius - "... fun, funky,buzzy and super-busy. It is up there with the best of the new arrivals"
11 November 2014 Lady Boy Dining + Bar - "... just great food at a great price, which too is cause for celebration." Our summary HERE
18 November 2014 Green Park - "There is much to like at Green Park at whatever time of day. ... they’re on the right track." Our sunmary HERE
25 November 2014 - L'Altro Modo - "... word is filtering out that L’Altro Mondo is good. Very good. In fact, it’s a #perfectlocalrestaurant." Our summary HERE
2 December 2014 Kappo - "... an impressive first course of colour, textures and tastes but it was the next dish to arrive that frankly blew my feeble mind. ... The procession of perfection continued ..." Our summary HERE
9 December 2014 Gradi Crown - "... authentic Neapolitan style pizzas to ... exacting, world-beating standards." Our summary HERE
16 December 2014 Boca del Sur - "... there is some real class coming out of the kitchen, serving an evolving, broadly Spanish menu." Our summary HERE