I recently found myself back in the land of the long green paddock (most recently colonised by the double brick dream home as far as the eye can see). The air was crisp and the landscape wide just like I remembered it.
I had arrived on the eve of my 40th birthday at the ultimate Melbourne restaurant to see what, if anything had changed. I hoped that not much had, apart from a recent kitchen renovation and an increasing reliance on the magic arts of head Chef and gardener extraordinaire Blayne Bertoncello.
Last time I had visited with Blayne we had met not here at the neat, white-brick fronted restaurant in suburban Beaconsfield but at the eponymous Cardi Farm. I had generously been granted entrance to the sprawling piece of land that plays host, brings forth the produce that feeds diners from far and wide at the award-winning O.My restaurant (two hats at last count, thank you very much).
Blayne is a polite, gently spoken man on a mission with a green thumb of steel, or maybe it’s his heart. Because he works very hard, coaxing life and all manner of produce from the soil of Cardinia shire before heading back to his restaurant to cook it with finesse and an eye for detail that is unsurpassed. I am unsure where he finds the time to dream up the mainly vegetable, strictly no waste menu but I have a suspicion that is has something to do with that local landscape and with what they say about gardening being good for the soul.
Blayne had calmly showed me around his gardens that are hosted on his friends property and what struck me beside from the astounding amount of food that he was able to coax from the soil (watermelon to Jerusalem artichoke to celeriac and onward) was the peaceful determination of the many staff working alongside him in his garden and kitchen.
Now 18 months later I was back again, ready to taste what was on offer at the increasingly sharp O.My restaurant. Blayne and his brother Chayse insist every time I speak to them that nothing much has changed at their restaurant in the 6 years it has been open. That they remain focused on producing and serving the same quality and style of food they have always been interested in but I have been watching keenly from the sidelines and I suspected that things had changed, a little. In a good way.
Warm smiles greet us as we step into the tiny restaurant. Nothing different there.
Some of the earlier artworks are gone, moved on to “Mum’s place” I am later told. Instead they are replaced with black paint but for the two dried plants draped across the wall. Most strikingly is the grape-vine, roots intact, that hangs across the long wall, pulled directly from the soil at a friends winery, reminding us of what we have come for. Food from the earth or to quote the team directly “food inspired by nature.”
The room is intimate, dimly lit, quiet, reminding me of a hollow or a grotto in a Summer garden. The food arrives in time. “Snacks from the garden, to show you what we have been working on” to start off with.
“Snacks” does not adequately describe the intricate array of delicacies that then are presented to us at the table, although the phrase does hint at the delicate thread of humour, the levelheadedness, that permeates this restaurant.
It is all a little “Mad Hatters Tea Party” with tiny morsels of colourful food stacked on plinths made of timber and laid out in stark pottery bowls (“This bowl looks like it is made of salt” remarks my son). I am struck for a moment with the realisation that this is a wonderful way to spend my birthday.
There are tiny green packages of something slippery and delicious. A terrine made of layers of something green and buttery (sorrel?) the taste of which belies the simplicity of its presentation.
There are single thin, crispy layers of cabbage leaves (Blaine’s favorite ingredient as he memorably explained to Ottolenghi) drizzled with farm honey and scattered with jewels and powders that I cannot identify.
This is the point of O.My restaurant I guess. The astoundingly creative food found here cannot be created at home or by the average chef despite the fact that it nearly all comes directly from the near-by garden. Ingredients are kindly identified at the end of the meal with a little cardboard note that lists everything that you ate across the evening.
“Farm eggs, black garlic, soil, thyme, warrigal greens (ever so smoky and memorable), sorrel, bacon, preserved mushrooms, beetroot, garden leaves, rosemary, broadens, preserved grapes, allium flowers, reddish, sage.”
The list goes on.
Sourdough with a 6 year old starter comes next “maybe my favourite part of the meal” quips Chayse, reminding us that simple things done well can be extraordinary. This time it is served with “house churned butter” a favourite of modern Melbourne restaurants who take themselves seriously but never to be outdone O.My have added a soupçon of beef lard to spread on your sourdough. I wasn’t going to try it, but I did and it was devastatingly good.
Zero waste pumpkin is served next. A dish I first tried here 6 years ago and I am told it has changed, been improved upon, but I can’t tell because it was (back then) one of the best things I have ever eaten in a restaurant and it still is. Blayne uses the whole pumpkin to make this dish, proving his evangelical commitment to no waste, root to top dining.
Pot roasted Cabbage with beef jus and celeriac mash comes next and now I am remembering a pot roast at my Nanna’s house many moons ago, that deep flavour of beef cooked well. Good food does that to you, transports you somewhere else, stirs up memory and feeling.
We finish with a pudding of persevered fruits, bread-vinegar crumble and sour dough pudding and a little square of chocolate brownie that miraculously holds its shape despite oozing to a gleaming river of chocolate once I crack its surface.
There were more dishes throughout the evening. This is no ordinary restaurant and so you leave the menu to Blayne and his team, awaiting the explanation that they aways offer as it hits the table. “We have finally grown enough celeriac that we can add it to our regular menu.”
The food here is delightful, impressive, compelling and it is served with warmth and generosity making for an excellent evening out.
We finish our dinner, say goodbye and step back out into the cool black night, happy.
Out of the rabbit hole and back into the suburbs.
The details
