Emilia reviews a ‘luxurious’ underground bar in South Melbourne

Press PLAY to hear Emilia’s full review

Castlerose

69 Palmerston Crescent

South Melbourne

We’re getting historically controversial this week.

Castlerose, named after Winston Churchill’s alleged affair with Lady Castlerose, who happens to be Cara Delevinge’s great aunt. The secretive, hidden, down the spiral staircase to a dimly-lit, sexy but whimsical European Supper Club does have a certain je ne sais quoi that might veer someone down into the abyss that is a…South Melbourne speakeasy, what did you think I was going to say?

The café is named after Churchill’s wife Clementine and is a light bathed that they describe as “sitting pretty in South Melbourne’s lakeside pocket, Clementine’s here to take care of you”.

Are you catching the narrative? The allegation stands that Churchill was unfaithful in the 1930s while on holiday in the south of France and from it we get a Melbourne take on it.

Their head Chef, David Yuan has fun with the menu; spring rolls disguised as cigars in another Churchill nod, a cheese cart for after the meal, cheesecake in the shape of actual cheese. It’s a surprise and delight kind of experience that you have to completely surrender to.

With all that said, it’s not presented as a novelty restaurant and I don’t want to pigeonhole them into that because it’s really much more. Their European influenced dishes feel luxurious and curated, the menu states at the top that it’s “generous, flexible and designed to share”. 

Let’s play this like a choose your own adventure; start with your choice of bread rolls and whipped butter, oysters, house pickles and olives, then you can choose 30 grams of any charcuterie meat to match.

The wagyu bresola feels like a natural must and we tried the salami at the recommendation of the server. Yes and also, yes. Then you have three choices of entrees; the cigar, confit duck spring rolls, mac & parmesan cheese croquettes and lobster rolls. 

They make a point of having very good cocktails and very good wine. Cocktails stay classic but they’ve got the skill and the equipment to go as adventurous as you’d like. 

The cigars, apart from just confit duck, also have orange zest and are then served with a side of aioli topped with olive dust that looks like cigar ash. Your ‘cigars’ are served in a wooden cigar box and the aioli and dust in a vintage, glass ashtray. They pull just the right amount of novelty out for this one. The croquettes are panko crumbed and come in bite sized cubes topped with more parmesan. 

For mains, the menu follows this simplicity that we’ve seen so far; king salmon ceviche, tartare, gnocchi, seafood pie, roast chicken or steak. The owner described to me that he wanted to make a menu where everything was choosable, where you could essentially point to any point on the page and end up with something agreeable and delicious. 

With that said, I might’ve chosen badly considering the calibre of choice. I chose roast chicken with black garlic, lemon, chicken gravy which was absolutely fabulous but not as adventurous as I could’ve gone. Enter: Hand made potato gnocchi porcini cream, local mushrooms, black truffle. Flavour was lap-up-able and the gnocchi crispy on the outside, smooth almost mashed potato inside – maybe a little too smooth for structural integrity.

Here’s the highlight of the night; Philly cream cheese lemon, lime, mustard fruits, honey roasted nuts which is presented as a cheese and nuts, delightful and delicious. The lemon won it for me.

If that’s prompted a need for cheese, they wheel in the cheese trolley with some serious cheeses to choose from; Spanish, Italian, French, local cheeses. The owner who was waved over to come and present the cheeses to us was equally knowledgeable and excitable. 

I almost could’ve just grazed on starters, cheese and dessert the whole night. The mains were good but they kept it simple. I was most excited by the dishes we ate on either side of the mains.

Half chicken will cost you $35, gnocchi $38, charcuterie between $18-$25 for generous servings, cocktails sitting in that more common Melbourne price around $20ish. Budget is about $100 a head.