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Lene

360 Bridge Rd

Richmond 3121

This is a public service announcement, and I’m not normally for commercialising holidays, sorry Russel; but it’s Valentine’s Day on Wednesday!

Don’t worry, there’s still time to book the perfect dinner spot that saves your marriage and has your partner swooning. Food is that powerful, right?

So, criteria for this week’s food review was moody, romantic date spot that is central and has bookings still for Wednesday night – easy, right? Call it fine dining without the fuss.

Enter, Lene. The head chef and owner is in his mid twenties, before you roll your eyes it injects the perfect amount of young energy into the space without feeling overrated or ‘trendy’.

All the food is made in house and feels nostalgic and accessible but presented in a way that makes it feel fine dining, innovative and unique. Massive, eclectic local art covers the walls that you can buy right off it with all proceeds going to the artist. 

The wine list is fair and mostly Australian, when the waiter mentioned they had a new, French martini on their menu with freshly juiced pineapple juice (many of you know French martinis are my favourite), I barely had a choice, it’s like they knew I was coming.

For starters we loaded up on summer seafood; grilled King prawns from the Scarlet Islands in the Northern Territory, with that touch of nostalgia with a BBQ and XO sauce on top.

King Ora salmon tartare surrounded a that reminiscence with some seaweed crisps (I’m saying that in the UK sense of crisps, as in a bag of chips).

We tried the beautiful, thick cut sourdough instead of the mussel flatbread but I’m still thinking about the flatbread to be honest…

Mains will be made easy if you book Valentine’s Day – they have a steak and fries special which we tried – Wagyu Flank Steak with miso butter melting on top. Have I yet told you my resistance of buying steak out these days because my partner cooks it better at home? I don’t think we could do this kind of steak at home.

We also had the Ricotta mezzaluna, cavolo nero and roasted garlic, which is a fancy way of saying ricotta ravioli with … (I almost don’t want to say it because I know you’ll be put off and I don’t want you to be, I want you to take the risk despite it’s prickly history) a variety of kale. It is pureed with garlic and completely delicious, so let’s stick to calling it cavolo nero. 

I almost didn’t leave space for dessert which would have been a huge mistake – I made space in my third stomach and ordered the sourdough donuts, I thanked me and you, too will thank me. There’s a citrus curd and cherry jam on the side which immediately made me think of a modern scone recipe. The donuts were light, fluffy golf ball sized balls and you heap curd and cherry on top of the sugary outside.

Whilst the cost does reflect more of a fine dining experience, they did a fabulous job with the help of lots of Police songs, Walking on the Moon and Message In A Bottle of making it feel relaxed and comfortable.

Most starters were around the $20 mark and mains between $30-55. For future reference, there’s also a gallery/function space upstairs that can seat up to 40 people. The name means “bright” in Swedish, we left feeling exactly that.