The Age Good Food Guide review for 2004

PERHAPS it's the notice about the chef-owner Adrian Richardson's monthly master classes
on the door. But from the moment you walk into La Luna's vanilla walled, terra cotta-floored dinning room, you know you're in expert hands. Nibbling on appetiser of say, garlicky olives, you contemplate the brief menu. You expect entrees of char-grilled octopus and calamari, sauteed with spinach, chilli, garlic and olive oil, to be tender and snapping with flavor. They will be. You consider the main course of Moroccan-spiced chickpeas, served with spinach and saffron spiked yoghurt. Or the famous trio of grilled pork sausages, one flavoured with red capsicum, another with olives, and the last with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. But really, you want to hear the specials. Perhaps there'll be a main course 'barrel of pork' - different cuts of pork rolled together, then infused with garlic, and served enveloped in crisp salty crackling - the ultimate roast pork fantasy come true. Or a less calorific dish of seared rare tuna with a salsa of parsley olives and capers. Desserts like warm crepes filled with hazelnuts and almonds make up for lost kilos.

John Lethlean's review from the Age web site.

It's 12.30pm and the exodus is on. Out of their towering city offices, out from behind desks everywhere, men are abandoning their mercantile and professional responsibilities to pursue more fundamental instincts: eat meat and drink red wine. It's Friday lunchtime.

Yes, women get in on the act too, in small numbers, yet there's something particularly masculine about the Friday lunch ritual. The primal yearning for animal muscle; the need to put it away with a shiraz or cabernet in the company of other men.

Whether you're talking local boozer, posh pub, casual bistro or full-on smart dining, this is a modern Australian urban tradition. Peculiar work practices and dining habits put me outside the square when it comes to these things. I don't work in the city; I work alone; I eat in restaurants too much already for a long, indulgent lunch to be considered a good thing, health-wise. Yet the enthusiasm of a mate for a big Friday lunch - with red meat and red wine (and a treasured half-bottle of Sauternes he's been saving for just such an occasion) - proves overwhelming. He suffers from similar vices and an isolated work situation so it seems a good opportunity to pretend we're normal blokes for an afternoon. But where?

La Luna, in North Carlton's Rathdowne Street strip, is his suggestion because the meat's good, the red's good, and for a reasonably modest fee ($4.50 a bottle) they'll accommodate that seductive little bottle of 1989 Chateau de Fargues without a hint of resentment. Fair enough. I like the idea, because La Luna is not all blokey and full of testosterone; this is North Carlton, after all. I reckon we can play at being regular guys without being made to feel insecure by all those Boss suits filled with investment bankers we'd have to deal with in town.

Numerous meals here over the years leave no doubt we'll be comfortable in the light, simple downstairs corner bistro space that is La Luna's principal dining room.

It is also a chance to see La Luna, which is owned and run by a chef, through slightly different eyes. For while the place started some five years ago as a kind of smart cafe, and still exploits that Carlton all-day-all-weekend brunch thing, it has slowly but surely morphed into a place where you probably won't find cutting-edge gastronomic endeavor but almost certainly will find quality produce, handled carefully. Rather than try to carve out a niche with a particular culinary style, La Luna's business plan is based on the primacy of good raw materials; beef carcasses aged in their own cool room, rare breed pork, house-made smallgoods and fabulous natural shellfish. That sort of thing.

Not necessarily ambitious, but satisfying because of the care that goes in at the front end. And with the restaurant's development has come greater emphasis on wine and knowledgeable service, important when you're charging just that bit more for an oyster or piece of fish because it is something special. This is the kind of place your waiter tells you the fish of the day is "rock flathead" (as opposed to the cheaper, less desirable sand flathead). How many waiters would know there is more than one species of the fish likely to make it to a kitchen in Melbourne? A place where excellent, sage-marinated olives sit on the table in golden oil as a matter of course. Where good ciabatta bread comes with a pot of even better olive oil with a "yolk" of dark, sweet balsamic syrup. There is a nice feeling of community at La Luna and we're made to feel extraordinarily welcome.

Despite the surname, chef Adrian Richardson has Italian roots, and his menu is infused with homely, Mediterranean brio; the restaurant might easily wear the tag "simple food from a sunny place".

The lunch begins. Excellent, freshly shucked South Australian oysters (six) are served at their very peak on a plate of rock salt with lemon wedges and a balsamic-shallot dressing to the side; nothing revolutionary, yet immensely good ($14.90). So too are the half-shell Tasmanian commercial scallops, quickly grilled (roe-on) with a garlic-parsley butter and a crunchy sourdough crumb ($15.90).

Then entrees. A smart little filo "pie", dusted with sumac, is filled with farmed rabbit meat, spinach and pine nuts. Garlic's there but in balance and the filling is delightfully light. It comes with a salad of exquisite baby rocket, semi-dried tomatoes and a pesto dressing ($14.90). A sensational jumble of super-fresh calamari is sauteed with spinach, garlic, lemon and chilli ($14.90). Very basic but one of those things that, straight from the pan to the mouth with crusty bread at hand, is difficult to beat.

From a strongly Victorian list, all this is dealt with by way of Chateau Leamon's 2002 Riesling, a good wine at $7.50 a glass. The main event, however, requires protein and red: specifically, a 1997 Virgin Hills ($85, from the secondary premium list), a suitably blokey sort of Bordeaux blend.

Beef. We're offered porterhouse or scotch fillet, choosing the latter, which is char-grilled, served on a good, firm yellow mash, surrounded by a sticky red wine jus and mounted with fronds of sweet, roasted red pepper garnished with finely chopped parsley. A very fine steak, cooked exactingly and with the offer of various mustards, horseradish and aioli ($27.50). What more could a bloke ask for? Maybe the day's special, which I preferred: a thin slice of pork loin rolled around garlic and sage, principally, with an excellent roasted crackling exterior. It is presented similarly to the steak: mash, a different, lighter jus but this time topped with bacon and shredded cabbage ($24.50).

At this point, I sense trouble, because my mate wants cheese to accompany his Sauternes. And he wants it all: two French cow's milk cheeses, a French chevre and a Spanish sheep's milk cheese, all presented nicely with pistachios, apple and quince paste ($15.50). I'm glad we did.

But wait, there's more. Yes, we do dessert at La Luna, too, neither necessary nor that great, to be honest. A blood orange panna cotta, served with segments of fruit and a light syrup is, relative to the simple purity of the other food here, a bit clumsy: stiff, heavy and stolid ($12.50). Another - a kind of warm crepe rotolo - is much more interesting. The crepes have been layered with hazelnut and almonds and some concentrated dried fruit, served with a superior, dark fruity syrup and a ball of ice-cream. Sliced and served flat, it resembles a pastry escargot ($12.50).

At this point, we have no office to return to, and perhaps that's a good thing.