Vegetarian restaurant Transformer in Fitzroy is Vegie Bar’s grown-up sibling with real style Vegetarian restaurant Transformer in Fitzroy is Vegie Bar’s grown-up sibling with real style
THE Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations tells us to do it. So, too, world cancer research bodies. The Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change highlights it as a major contributing factor and don’t even think of getting the likes of Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth started. But the message is starting to sink in. Eating less meat is good for us, and good for the planet.
Not that you’d know this from dining at Transformer. In fact, if loudmouths like me didn’t bang on about it, there’s a real chance you wouldn’t even realise this is a vegetarian joint. No proselytising, no PETA posters, no Smiths on the stereo. Just really good food.
We’ve come a long way.
Long before Ottolenghi made salads sexy, the Vegie Bar on Brunswick St was diligently prosecuting the meat-free agenda, though aimed at a core crowd of students, hand-knit beanies and the hung-over seeking redemption, and not a great deal has changed over the past 25-odd years. It’s still going strong, if singing the same song.
Ricotta and rye gnocchi, organic sprouted lentils, pumpkin mousse, blueberry compote.
From the same crew — Laki Papadopoulos and Mark Price, who also have Rice Queen across the road, and Panama Dining Room — Transformer is the Vegie Bar’s grown up meat-free sibling, where save the world angst has been replaced by a taste for noninterventionist wine and the food is focused on doing more good for the belly than it is for the soul.
The old electrical warehouse has been thankfully saved from becoming another block where “a coveted inner-city lifestyle awaits”, and instead transformed into a gloriously high-ceilinged, exposed brick and wood space, cleverly demarcated into sections so as to feel at once intimate and spacious, with lots of plants and subtle lighting in which everyone looks good.
Bookings are taken for the two sittings each night, both of which have been full since opening eight weeks ago with a mix of funky Fitzrovians and spunky empty nesters.
Transformer is set in an old electrical warehouse. Picture: Tony Gough
Mushrooms are the chef’s failsafe when cooking vegetarian. But here, in Luke Florence’s hands, the plate of king oyster mushrooms is the type of dish that will get even the most ardent carnivore secretly coveting meat-free Monday. Three monster mushrooms, each sporting lattice branding from the grill, are as seductively textural as a piece of prime wagyu. Sprinkled with porcini salt to ramp up their already big personalities, they’re served with a confit garlic and pine nut puree piped into a couple of slinky smoked shallot halves. It’s a mighty dish that’s equally refined and shows deft respect for good ingredients. At $16, it’s one of the bigger “small plates”, and a hero of the menu.
The spelt steamed bun is another with its crisp wedge of tofu, pickled cucumber and good punchy heat from the gochujang mayo (a Korean red chilli paste). Perfectly on trend, perfectly delicious ($7 each).
I loved the clever simplicity of the roasted sweet potato, the large chucks of orange and white-fleshed veg crunchy outside, soft inside, that were sprinkled with togarashi (a Japanese chilli) and drizzled with a sweet coconut yoghurt dressing. I could’ve happily eaten the whole plate ($9).
Of the dishes tried, the simpler constructions were the more successful. Dollops of spiced labneh and tahini teamed with a mound of cucumber ribbons and snow pea shoots made for the garden bed upon which whole roasted almonds, chick peas and olives were tossed ($14), or the elegant simplicity of an excellent chevre cheesecake served with pear sorbet to finish ($12).
Though the prettiest dish of the night, I’m not sure the disparate elements of the ricotta and rye gnocchi ($15) worked together, the little lentil sprouts scattered around piped pumpkin puree and dollops of blueberry compote lacked a unifying element — but nothing wrong with the light pillows with a healthy pan tan.
Likewise the jumble of soba noodles and smoked tofu ($17) that had capers and ginger and pomegranate and wasabi cashews thrown at it in the Pro Hart hope it would all come together in the end (it didn’t).
But the refined plate of petal-topped lemon curd that surrounded a perfect quenelle of strawberry sorbet on crushed hazelnuts was more indicative of the kitchen’s talents, keeping the sweet on its tippy toes with a dose of sharp ($10).
The short wine list tends to the bio-organic and is as well priced as the menu, which, with nothing over $20 on it, makes for an affordable night. It’s cool without being overly so, on a mission without making a show. Transformer heralds a new way of thinking about vegetarian food. And that’s good for all of us.
Transformer
99 Rose St, Fitzroy
9419 2022
Source : Herald Sun Dan Stock May 19th 2015
