Cutler — Restaurant in Melbourne

I think this establishment has accidentally crossed the line into overly pretentious territory, rather than inviting and sophisticated.

Our waitress was not responsive to our dietary requirements (somehow mixing up pork and beef), which led to a confusing and indeed awkward interaction. It impacted every one of our interactions afterwards as well.

We got the selection menu, which had a good set of dishes to choose from - however, again, the waitress made it much harder to understand than it actually was. She struggled to explain the process, and which ones came automatically with the menu, and which you could choose from.

We were also sat at a terrible spot, and the atmosphere is the furthest thing from warm and inviting. We asked to be moved to a different spot, if possible, as there were multiple tables free that were away from foot traffic and the cash register, and we had requested upon booking that we were put in a good spot for a special occasion. Whilst I understand that special requests cannot always be accommodated to, the waitress’ reasoning was “well, people book months in advance for this place so they get a better spot”, which was almost funny, if it weren’t the fact that we were one of those people who had booked months in advance. It’d be hard to think that those who came in later than us and got a better seat were also ones who went out of their way to request a nice spot - they presumably just got lucky. I can only assume that the waitress’ answer was also not the correct way to respond to a request to move tables.

As you can see in one of the photos, the candle on our table was on its last legs, spilling wax every two seconds which was just not pleasant to be around. This was worsened by the fact that everyone around us had a fresh candle stick, and ours was the only one struggling and making a mess. It was only when dessert came around that a kind waiter came and changed it.

The food is not half-bad here, but it doesn’t matter when the service is lacking, your waitress is not knowledgeable, and the ambience has failed to make you feel welcomed. There’s a weird sense of displacement that you’ll feel here, and you’ll also find that you will be heavily surveilled throughout each meal and your conversations will be eavesdropped on by every passing waiter/waitress. You can physically feel yourself being watched. Whilst I appreciate attentive waitstaff, this place takes it to a borderline creepy level.

To the point where I would say to my partner that I’d need to use the restroom, for someone to spring out of nowhere and tell me they can escort me to the bathroom. Whilst that was the friendliest interaction I had that night, I would rather my conversations remain private between myself and the other party, and if I wanted help - I would ask for it. It also ran it home that we were in an awful spot, right in the middle of both customer and waitstaff traffic, where there wasn’t a moment someone was walking past.

Whilst I don’t have a problem with the taste of the food, it was a bunch of little things that accumulated and caused a negative impact on the experience. And when you pay upwards of $200 per person (food and drinks included), you’d hope that means absolutely every element (not just the food, but the service and atmosphere) will be worth that price.

I would actually like to go back and see what the experience might be like with a different mindset, and probably a different waitstaff member - to see if the potential I’m seeing in a lot of 5-star reviews can be fulfilled - and perhaps I just came on a bad day.

I would still recommend trying some of the food here, and the other reviews give me hope that I just got the short end of the stick when I went. I can only hope that the quality of the dishes is not overshadowed by a lack of customer service or strangely pretentious atmosphere if I choose to...

I will copy here the review I have written to myself. Such an impressive work in terms of flavour complexity, and even more in terms of wine pairing!

Memorable evening for celebration of my PhD!

I think I can add food critic to my mid-life crisis jobs. This evening was sensorially divine, made me forget about all the stress of my current career situation and also made me feel for the first time like I could decently celebrate the hard work of my thesis completion.

We started at home with a half bottle of grand cru brought back from my last trip to Belgium ❤️ I kept going with some more grand cru over there, with a wagyu croustillant as amuse gueule and charred bread with Anchovy and smoked straciatella, as they now have a winter "from the grill" menu which we will have to taste next time we come back!

We went for the chef's selection menu, which started with Shark Bay scallop, lion’s mane & wood ear mushroom and golden chicken broth served with some predominantly pinot noir champagne, bringing plenty of freshness to the umami and fatty notes of this dish.

The next meal was my partner's "best salad he had in his life" kale, Cauliflower, romanesco and kohlrabi salad, with pine mushrooms, cumin vinaigrette with some delightful red wine vinegar. This was served with an oxidative wine from northern Tasmania, perfectly matching the sulfur of the cruciferus with the sulfury nose of the wine. The oxidative compounds and its almost savouriness were the perfect match to the sweetness, freshness and umami notes of the vinaigrette 😍 most impressive wine pairing with a challenging wine that I have seen in a very long time, which was enhancing the flavours of both the dish and the wine at the same time.

The Murray cod was served with pickled Cucumber, Fennel and buttermilk and Parsley with a forgotten grape variety wine from south West France. I forgot the name of it but it had an elegant length without too much acidity, plenty of lactic notes which where nicely matching the buttermilk sauce and cleaned up the palate so nicely from the freshness of the Cucumber, Parsley and crispy skin cod. I forgot to take a picture from the lamb, which was beyond perfect in terms of flavour and texture. Served with a delicious Marsala sauce, smoked walnut and nicely matched by a colder Australian climate young tempranillo.

I of course couldn't resist to some cheese before the dessert and while the guy asked me for wine pairing and I struggled to find the good match to a platter of époisse, 24 months summer comté and Gippsland blue, he suggested me another surprise that would again be one of the highlights of the night in terms of wine and food pairing. It wasn't a wine, it was a pear juice cut with pear eau de vie aged in oak from Normandie. If someone can tell me what it is I would be grateful! The sweetness of the fruit with the structure of the alcohol and the fine wood notes made it an amazing match to the fat, stinky or even savoury notes from all the cheeses! I congratulated the team behind the wine pairing many times for their impressive work.

We finished with a vacherin with quince (coing confit), honeybush and rosemary ice cream, perfectly complemented with a late harvest chenin blanc. Its delicate sweetness, the hint of lactic notes, subtle acidity and oxidative compound were a perfect final match to the sweetness of the honey and savouriness of the rosemary in this ice cream, and the jam like flavours of the quince.

My God I think it's time for me to start a new PhD to come back!!! Back now down on earth with all its stress, worries and simplicity of life, but it was so worth escaping to the flavour and taste paradise for...

Opened for 10 years, a year after Cumulus Inc now. A mission to offer top end dining, yet you feel relaxed without feeling out of place if you’ve dressed up or down. As you approach Gertrude St of Fitzroy, you see casual dining table and chairs outside, that day was filled with many people unwinding for a drink after work. High ceilings and large windows made us feel very welcomed, and right at the door was someone ready to help me with my reservation.

Complimentary dish as a appetiser, lightly fried tomato based crackers with delicious salsa.

Bread also came as complimentary, they came out warm, and as we tore the bread apart in quarters, we saw the steam come out. The bread was delicious with the umami butter, the other salted butter was a little too salty for me. I enjoyed the umami butter, it had a sweet aftertaste. Cutler & Co was so generous with bread and butter, when they offered us seconds they gave us new quenelle butter.

We ordered the Yellowfin tuna crudo, Tasmanian wasabi, finger lime & celery, $34, it was very fresh with very little flavouring. The dish looks small below, but that’s because they plated in two for our convenience. Love it when restaurants do this for us. Not only is it prettier than us grabbing off each other’s plates, but it’s not as messy. J could taste the wasabi flavour from his dish, but I couldn’t. I could taste the celery more in the dish. J preferred this entree, whereas I enjoyed the Asparagus and Pistachio Entree.

Jonella farm asparagus, pistachio, egg yolk, black garlic & rye $32 A vegetarian dish, but I enjoyed the black garlic addition bringing a stronger tastes than just veggies. The finely sliced asparagus were crunchy, never had asparagus like this before. Crispy pistachio in fine bits and pistachio puree were really good to dip the asparagus with. The egg yolk was thick and I just mixed it with the puree.

For mains we ordered the O’Conner Rib Eye of 1.1 kg, with house made mustard, shaved cabbage and fennel salad, $180. We were advised upon ordering that it would take 1 hour to prepare and checked if that was OK with us. We thought we were fine, we were very hungry at 6.30pm and could take our time… but I think we had a lot of bread and two entrees got us half full… My first bite of the rib eye was quite chewy. But after my next piece it was fine. I think it depends on which part I pick. Lightly grilled on the outer and blue to medium rare inside. It’s not very common we eat blue. We weren’t asked how we want our meat cooked, so if you can’t take blue meat, i’d suggest to speak with the waiter first. My favourite sauce to dip was the yellow mustard. Sour enough to keep me going with the enormous amount of meat we ordered. Shaved cabbage and fennel salad were great, I couldn’t have any more of the meat, but I could continue bit by bit with the salad. Finely shaved and easy to eat.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it to dessert. There were two other desserts we wanted to try but just didn’t have any more room for it. The waiter mentioned we can have dessert next time at the front of restaurant if we don’t want to have the full dining experience. Service was brilliant, ambience was very warming, both of us had a great time. I’m still longing for the desserts I couldn’t get to try. So I’ll definitely revisit just to be...