I’m not embarrassed to say I like the veggies at Carlton’s Embrasse.

Embrasse, 312 Drummond St, Carlton, Vic 3053 (+61 3 9347 3312) you can check out my full photostream for Embrasse on Flickr here.

Me and 312 Drummond St, we’ve got history. Maybe it’s something to do with Carlton.

First a misplaced booking at Mrs Jones professionally sorted out by Jackie when she was front of house. The dinner on a shared table was fun but the cold fish wasn’t.

Then upstairs as Three, One, Two. A fortnight between courses, a starvation diet and a coach party from weight watchers. The complimentary coffee didn’t really sort it out.

Third time lucky at Embrasse?

We were hidden in the back, a red room with remnants of Andrew McConnell’s camouflage netting hiding a window.

It could have been like eating in a womb. But it wasn’t.

It turned out to be hilarious. We spied on chef-owner Nicolas Poelaert through a hole in the wall. And he spied on us, popping out to say hi. And by the end of the evening giving me the third degree for taking pictures of the food.

And actually, I wasn’t watching Poelaert. Thanks to a well-placed mirror, I could see some poor wretch washing-up the pans – and a sous-vide cooker at the back of the kitchen.

The jokes ran as freely as the wine, sourced from a short and lovely, thought-provoking list. Every time one of our trashed group came out with a gag, the kitchen rang it’s service bell. Ding!

We thought we were hilarious. Ding! And when either our service bell – or perhaps our humour – ran out, I was reminded that I must programme my iPhone with a drum roll. Terrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuummmmm!

And then we can repeat fun nights like this again. Because it was.

Poelaert comes from the kitchen at Circa The Prince, where The legacy to cooking is a whole bunch of chefs – including Matt Wilkinson and importantly Ben Shewry – who are foraging, growing their own food and dressing it up in flowers.

It’s the same vibe as what’s going on with Dan Hunter at the Royal Mail Hotel, but inner city.

Poelaert is on the same sheet as Shewry, both inspired by childhood memories; Shewry in New Zealand and Poelaert France. Plus from when he worked for 3 star Michelin chef Michel Bras, who is known for the purity of his dishes and elevating humble ingredients to a higher plane of taste.

And while the restaurant describes itself as modern French, it is 15,000km away of the EuroDisney-like interpretations of France we get from Bistros Guillaume or Vue or France-Soir.

Apart from an astonishingly rich cheesy mashed potato known as aligot, and French butter and cheeses, the food isn’t really about butter or fat. It is designed for a population that doesn’t smoke filterless Gitanes, and can taste the sensitive flavours from flowers, young vegetables, some of them so esoteric you will have never heard of them.

The important word is seasonal, so what we ate will be long gone from the menu. This is food that has taken a real effort to grow and source yet it comes at a reasonable price with starters $15-$17 and mains $29 (the veggie option of home grown meli melo of vegetables, sprouts herbs and flowers, herbs emulsions) to $38. It’s pretty food constructed using the latest techniques used by modern chefs and it tastes as good as it looks. But those modern techniques are also its undoing as the expectations of diners perhaps haven’t caught up with technique.

Specifically, when @melbournebitter ordered duck she imagined flesh falling apart and crispy skin. Not a pink cylinder cooked sous-vide.

She recovered from it though with desserts, which were as pretty and exciting for the palate – check out the gossamer thin sheath of sugar – as for the eyes.

I’m not embarrassed to say I like Embrasse. A lot.

And I would return just to eat vegetables in the knowledge that I could walk out feeling as satisfied as a carnivore could. And who knows, I may even rewrite history and find a table booked for me in the main dining room. Terrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuummmmm!

Tagged as: Andrew McConnell, Ben Shewry, Embrasse, Matt Wilkinson, Nicolas Poelaert