Sunday lunch stuns at the Melbourne Wine Room no thanks to liquor licensing bully boys

So the other Saturday the Melbourne Wine Room at The George had the boot boys in. Liquor Licensing Victoria sent in its storm troopers to shut the place down mid-service on a Saturday night.
The only way they could have been anymore heavy handed would have been to raid the kitchen and Tazer Karen Martini before bundling her off in a sack in the back of a dark-windowed SUV.
When I saw the sign on the door I was put into a mild panic. The George is a home from home for snacks, booze, long lunches, rows with my twitter widow (twidow) and more booze – all consumed responsibly, of course.
The details in this story are petty and dull, full of red tape. It was about the wrong name – a partner in the business who’d left a year earlier – being on a license. It was an oversight but it meant the business was closed for almost a whole week.
It was therefore time to return and eat Sunday lunch (incidentally there is a set meal cooked by a distinctly unTazered Martini most Sundays nowadays and next on June 5).
The wine list is brilliant here and if you know what you are doing you’ll start with a Trumer, a glass of white or a champagne – perhaps all three – and put yourself in their hands.

Then it is to the food. We didn’t go for Martini’s set menu but it looked brilliant and we will when we return for Sunday lunch. Instead we went for a mix of old favourites and some of the new.
The twidow has a starter-sized smoked trout salad. I know this sounds boring but Karen Martini is the master at composing salads, possibly the best in Australia. Twidow then follows it with a large starter of room temperature vitello tonato, a simple and desirable classic topped with plenty of sliced eggy goodness.

I deviated from my norm and went for a sardine tarte, good but very vinegary – perhaps too much for me. I followed by Cotechino sausage on a bed of lentils served with sliced mustard fruits and a deep fried artichoke heart. What I love about this dish is the rich flavours and contrasting textures. As long as it is on the lunch menu a Tazer will be required to stop me ordering it.

Then comes the quince tarte tatin, taken daringly close to the the dark caramelised edge. The problem with most of these upside down caramelised tarts is that they don’t take the caramelisation far enough and serve insipid light brow affairs.
This was dark, very dark with crispy and chewy bits. I was a ballsy move. I scoffed it down with a Richard Wilkins-coloured Beaune de Venise.
And the flavors lingered nearly as long as the recent liquor licensing problem. And now a Tazer will be required to keep me away from that too.

Tagged as: Karen MArtini, Melbourne Wine Room, St Kilda, Sunday Lunch, The George