Verge (warning! annoying music), 1 Flinders La, Melbourne 3000 +61 3 9639 9500
Verge, a designer space with worn stairs and edges of its designer pepper grinders, is the ultimate food photography challenge. I can’t say the low lighting is a gimmick, just bad design. A design so bad that none of us can read the menu. We had to request a spot light to be pointed in our direction and still the shadows made it difficult to read.
What is a gimmick is most of the food on the menu, full of foams, gels, emulsions and foams. And nothing on the menu shouts out “eat me”.
We started with half a dozen dressed oysters ($21). Nothing wrong there.
Phew! No foam: Zensai moriawase
The Zensai moriawase, assorted Japanese hors d’oevres ($18/$23) which seems to have been advertised for sharing is not designed for that. The presentation was plain and nothing on the plate really appealed in flavour or texture.
My Mulloway ($36) was good. But Twidow and Melbournebitter were grimacing at Lamb rump, braised shoulder tortellini, baby leek, blackfungi, liquid olive ($36). Assaulted by foam, the lamb was okay, the variation on the Ferran Adria sperified olive unpopular and the tortellini tough and dry.
Main course foam and a liquid olive: Lamb rump, braised shoulder tortellini, baby leek, blackfungi, liquid olive
Twidow then does something unheard of. She complains. She says she didn’t like the dish describing all its faults. Later it is removed from what becomes a $457 bill.
The Rolled rabbit loin, yuba, herb spatzle, vegetables, celeriac puree, chestnut ($35) is, however, declared the best of the three dishes.
It was around this point that we wanted another bottle of the very enjoyable Delatite Riesling ($55) which was now out of stock.
Superb:Rolled rabbit loin, yuba, herb spatzle, vegetables, celeriac puree, chestnut
By now it is late. The crowds are thinning and we are offered dessert in the front window, overlooking Treasury Gardens.
As they do – and I find it annoying – twidow and Melbournebitter go out for a fag just before the desserts arrive. I’m about to text them but our waiter says he told them. In fact, perhaps losing patience with our quibbles, he grabbed Melbournebitter’s arm and her mood slides.
The winning dessert: Warm spiced cumquat pain perdu, quince parfait, soy caramel, carbonated mandarin
The desserts ($15) all look appealing and we matched them to a Crittenden Moscato ($45). The winner was “warm spiced cumquat pain perdu, quince parfait, soy caramel, carbonated mandarin”.
Spot the liquid grape: pineapple and coconut terrine, liquid grape,malted milk, basil
The gelling agent was set like rubber in the the “pineapple and coconut terrine, liquid grape, malted milk, basil”. The yoghurt and Rhubarb “sphere”, papaya, caramalized white chocolate was unmemorable.
Dessert foam: yoghurt and Rhubarb “sphere”, papaya, caramalized white chocolate
At this point I was starting to become uncharitable, probably because of the pretentious table next to us were unwittingly playing some kind of artspeak buzzword bingo. Though the “chocolate ganache, doughnut, chestnut, popcorn, tonka bean ice cream” was perfectly edible I felt an overload of some kind of gelling agent and that the chocolate looked like it quite possible had been extruded from the popcorn styled as an arsehole on my plate.
Edible: Chocolate ganache, doughnut, chestnut, popcorn, tonka bean ice cream
Not everything is awful here and the wine list is good. But I came away with the feeling that everything was just a bit tired at Verge and that it is in need of a refresh. I had heard good reports. But also some bad (also check comments). I wonder if one of the owners, Simon Denton, is distracted because he is opening a pub-style Japanese Izakaya on the corner of Little Collins and Russell Street.
For nearly $500 I expect something better. That’s an evening and a decent whack of money that I’ll never get back.
Photography postscript
Darkness is a nightmare for food bloggers who live on the cutting edge of guerilla low light photography in restaurants. My three year old Ricoh GR Digital – with it’s amazing 1cm macro – has a f2.4 aperature often doesn’t cut it.
I upgraded my lens on my other Olympus Digital SLR to a Sigma 30mm f1.4, which is what I took these pics with. One of the challenges is getting used to a longer focal length than the GR as well as the low lighting at Verge.
The latest iteration of the Ricoh GR Digital III, with the same amazing macro feature, comes with a f1.8 lens, ideal for most restaurant conditions. It comes with aperture and shutter priority and a very simple intuitive menu and controls.
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Low light really is the bane of foodblogging, especially for anyone that works outside the food industry during daylight hours. White balancing your shots in Photoshop helps a great deal . e.g. this is pretty quick and dirty:
Sorry – I couldn’t embed a pic. Here’s the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lastappetite/3807567760/ . I’ll take it down if I’m breaching your copyright.
Low light is a pain for all food bloggers but i guess we never worried about it before when we used to not take photos of our food hehe. Romantic lighting was great but now it’s the enemy of our photos and blogging. why can’t we just enjoy the ambience anymore — it’s because we are now compelled to take great photos of everything i guess. phil is right. photoshop will help in retouching but it’s a time consumer. i had a go at the same photo using a few techniques to try and keep colours as true as possible. i have to do this a lot especially for low lighting and overcast colour lights because i only use a basic hand held compact camera canon ixus 70. see my results here http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2914862&l=bf3b0fc05d&id=678726530
Low light is a pain for all food bloggers but i guess we never worried about it before when we used to not take photos of our food hehe. Romantic lighting was great but now it’s the enemy of our photos and blogging. why can’t we just enjoy the ambience anymore — it’s because we are now compelled to take great photos of everything i guess. phil is right. photoshop will help in retouching but it’s a time consumer. i had a go at the same photo using a few techniques to try and keep colours as true as possible. i have to do this a lot especially for low lighting and overcast colour lights because i only use a basic hand held compact camera canon ixus 70. see my results here http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2914893&l=74c054f641&id=678726530
ps. I changed the link. can delete my previous comment.
Phil, no worries about copyright.I just worry about big commercial sites and people I don’t know who don’t ask. I lot my key for Aperture for the new computer and am stuck with inadequate iPhoto for a while. Nice enhancement and you see how awful that jelly looks on the enhanced version.
Simon, that looks great. What was it you did exactly? Although the jelly was really quit eluminous.
‘quite illuminous’ would have been very cool to see
i use soft light filter to lighting the image. also used colour filter balance to add cyan to counteract your warm yellow lighting. plus adding a bit of highlight colour balance for the white point. so about 3 steps plus i think i sharpened as well. when there’s a few photos it can take a while because each photo is different.
Sad but not surprised to read your views on Verge. 3 or 4 years ago I would have said it was my favourite place to eat in Melbourne but the last time I visited it was looking shabby and the food was pretentious and average. Also, and I don’t have a clue why, it does seem to attract some truly DREADFUL tossers of the arty persuasion.
Hey Ed, great photos to start off with. I’m amazed you were able to capture anything in that dark dark restaurant.
Secondly, I see the food is still really tricked up and not good. I’m so impressed that Twidow complained, wow. I think I will try that in future too, as it will help the restaurant improve.
Thirdly, I’m impressed with what Phil and Simon were able to do with the photos. I wish I knew how to use Photoshop properly to help enhance my amateur food photos. I need a DSLR too as well hahaha. Point and shoots just don’t cut it anymore in the food blogging world.
Finally, I agree with Hannah, the people sitting around me at the time were quite snobby arty types.
Hey Ed,
Thanks for the very honest and very amusing review.
I don’t feel qualified enough to jump on the Let’s-poo-poo-Verge wagon, as I’ve only eaten there once (in March) – But as with your trio and Thanh’s experience, I remember leaving disappointed and underwhelmed.
Silly mistake on my part, I chose Verge solely on its Chef’s Hats.
Lesson learnt.
-TY
Simon,thanks.
Hannah, And I was actually quite kind about the tossers.I wanted to shoot myself just listening in. It’s probably the pretentions of the food and the design of the place that attracts them.
Thahn,Complaining is a tricky one as it always creates a tension with the staff which I think it did in this case. There again if customers don’t speak up they don’t know that they need to improve. The new Ricoh GR Digital I reckon cuts it pretty well with the f1.8 apereture and all the manual controls you want. Also you can do all those adjustments on iPhoto it just doesn’t have such white balance control as photoshop. Photoshop is also over the top for many people because most won’t use all it’s features. I also have Aperture which is cheaper and god white balance control. I just lost my activation key when I transfered it to a new computer which is a real bummer.
TooYum, A good lesson learned – chefs hats don’t always equate to what you expect because the people who hand them out are sometimes too close to the restaurants.
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