Annika Kafcaloudis
REVIEW
Where many modern meat-free restaurants exist to highlight the verisimilitude of their mock meats and faux cheeses, Patsy’s can seem almost radical in its approach. Its raison d’être? To celebrate the beauty of vegetables as they are, many of them purpose-grown on a farm owned and run by co-owner James Langley. In the kitchen, chef Dan Lidgard honours the produce in skilfully cooked Mediterranean style: a sensationally deep-flavoured shallot tarte Tatin or a choux farci with rice, pine nuts and herbs. Snackish bites like pitch-perfect gougères or polenta-crumbed fried green tomatoes with tangy salmoriglio play nicely with a drinks list that offers noteworthy cocktails (a Martini dirtied with pickled green tomato brine, say) and loves Spanish palomino and Italian barbera as much as Western Australian chenin and South Gippsland pinot noir. The flatteringly lit Spanish Mission-style building adds to the appeal of Patsy’s, a place both charmingly nostalgic and scintillatingly relevant.
ABOUT
Patsy’s
Vegetarian
213 Franklin St, Melbourne
(03) 9328 7667
Chef Dan Lidgard
Price guide $
Bookings Recommended
Wheelchair access No
Open Lunch and dinner daily
This review was written independently for the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide. The guide’s reviewers visit unannounced and pay their way. To learn more about the process, head over here.
Gourmet Traveller Annual Restaurant Guide
Our guide gives a yearly snapshot of the best restaurants to eat at right now. The best-rated restaurants, as judged by the reviewers’ first-hand experience, form our national guide.
