Movida bar de Tapas and Movida Next Door
1 Hosier Lane, Melbourne Victoria 3000
wwww.movida.com.au
e info@movida.com.au (email bookings not taken)
t +61 3 9663 3038
open Movida Bar de Tapas Open daily, noon to late. Movida Next Door Tuesday to Saturday 5.00 pm to late. Closed Sunday & Monday. Office open 10 am – 6 pm Monday to Friday
gg top 10 Melbourne
FOOD There are mornings when I dream about Movida, imagine having my coffee with their superlative creme caramel (flan); the truth is I’m mad about Movida. It just does everything that I want in every day dining. Good food, lack of formality underpinned by utterly professional staff who make everything seem effortless when actually juggling the masses wanting to get in their doors is not even slightly effortless. What I particularly admire is that this is a restaurant that works, exactly the same whether their executive chef and co–owner Frank Camorra is there or not. How many restaurants can achieve that? Brilliant front of house that know the mathematics of a restaurant and are constantly calculating how to best fill the restaurant; smart enough to keep a little holding table at the door, instantaneous service, passion for the food, the wine and the place. We chefs like to think it is our great food that draws people through the doors of a restaurant, and in part that is true, but a restaurant with great food will remain empty without the passion at the front.
Opportunistic, we prefer the bar for the vantage point it provides of the kitchen, bar, restaurant and door. Six months since our last visit only a couple of dishes remained on their menu…… yeah! Whilst going back daily for their creme caramel is a wild dream, seeing a menu that fails to change is for us an indication of lack of enthusiasm from the kitchen and worse, a failure of management that they do not drive it harder.
This time it was Hunter Valley quail, partially boned quail, filled with jamon and Mahon cheese, crumbed and deep–fried $7.50 each… scrumptious! Costilla con sobrasada, roast lamb cutlet encased in catalan pork and paprika pate $6.50 for two cutlets they were excellent. Monte mare, spiced rabbit meatballs braised with cuttlefish $20 were a masterpiece of simplicity and balance. Just the right amount of fat in the meat balls, they were succulent and juicy, sweetened with a raisin/grape stud the squid was cooked in a light sauce, brazen with sautéed onions that were sweet and sour and the perfect vehicle to quickly braise the squid. Thick and tender, the squid kept it’s flavour at the forefront to marry perfectly with the fantastic meat balls. This might seem simple food, and in a way it is, the difference being making a meatball is an art form. Too little fat and they will be dry, crumbly and horrid, too much fat might be the better option but it will still disappoint. Getting it just right is frequently the provence of poor people with a little meat and the need to make that small amount of meat go a very long way. Meatballs in Sichuan last year were so perfect we long for the recipe, and my master chef host, who had torn to shreds everyting we ate as being inadequate, imperfect pronounced them bench mark and he was right. Perfection can be found in humble places and in this instance about $2 AUD for a huge bowl of soup swimming with perfect meatballs will remain the bench mark. The meatballs at Movida came close (but not quite as good).
Flan con pestinos, Creme caramel served with spiced sherry pastries $10.00… as good as mine, maybe better, damn it!
My memories of Spanish food are from long ago; Pamplona and the running of the bulls through the streets, the first bull fights of our experience and of the dark magic of Barcelona where bleary eyed chefs scoured the market at 6am fighting over little baskets of wild strawberries with their fragrant perfume and fat steaming quail still warm from the kill. The food at Movida is brilliant unpretentious, delicious and for the effort very inexpensive. The gypsies of Zaragoza camped at the side of the road, everything seemed like watching a movie from he first bull fights to the long wild nights of celebration that ended with breakfast at dawn, a dawn that heralded the start of a new day.
This is another restaurant obsessed with produce and taste. It has courageous spirited and confident food that requires no garnish, no titillation to get the diner to succumb to the caresses of its charms. Like all of Australia’s kitchens the kitchen at Movida is almost the sum of migration to Australia, the binding fact a passion for food and food culture driven by chef and owner Frank Camorra. It is a kitchen that constantly functions at a frenetic pace but still finds time for a laugh, a taunt, a joke; it is clearly a kitchen that likes and respects each other and the sum of their staff a family with bonds that are raely understood by anyone outside of the industry.
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Movida is not the restaurant for those who detest noise, or who love sycophantic formality but their demographics which, range from the young to the very old must be the envy of 99% of restaurants in Australia.
Comparing restaurants, especially good restaurants is ridiculous because good restaurants have individual hearts and souls, but it has to be said that Movida, is the best tapas in Australia, followed closely by the different but extremely good Bar Lourinhã and both should be high on your list when visiting Melbourne.
If we lived in Melbourne Movida would be our local. AO
make sure you take a walk in the lanes and have a look at the fabulous street art. Hosier lane, the lane in which Movida is situated is particularly famous.
We still haven’t eaten at Movida Next Door, but we’ve had drinks there and were inspired by the live marron walking along their ice bed. Our food obsessed Melbourne friends gloat that we still haven’t had the pleasure.
WINE This fabulous list is more proof that a list doesn’t have to be a biblical tome to offer breadth and depth in the new and old world. With the bursting of Tempranillo onto the Australian wine stage the list at Movida is an opportunity to try most of the classic Spanish producers. Well-priced their wines start at about $45 and there are many really good wines available under $60. By the glass at Movida is a great opportunity to try classic Spanish producers. Movida is the complete package, food wine and fun!
books by Frank Camorra and Richard Cornish MOVIDA AND MOVIDA RUSTICA
Movida Rustica recently won best hard cover cookbook at the 2010 TASTING AUSTRALIA World Media Awards
CHEF AND OWNER — Frank Camorra - if you would like to read more about Frank Camorra and see a wonderful rocklobster recipe terrine recipe the Movida kitchen kindly made for Southern Rocklobster click here
