Solicit

LOCATION
In the centre of North Hobart, a ten-minute stroll from the Hobart Royal Botanical Gardens.

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
Since colonial times, this has been a famous boot maker’s shop which, as North Hobart was becoming the multicultural dining strip of the city, inevitably was recycled as a restaurant. And the recycling didn’t go much beyond an attractive new paint job, a floor polish, tables and chairs and a few contemporary paintings on the walls. The floors remain uneven, the ceilings low and the four small rooms still have some of their original crazy angles. All of this makes for a pleasantly cosseted and intimate old-fashioned atmosphere perfectly suited to the manner of service and chef/owner, John Mahindroo’s, food.

But the food is good, if a little retro and reminiscent of the 80s with things like oven-baked brie, prawn bisque, blackened quail and Sasher Torte (sic) along with chicken, beef, wallaby, lamb, octopus, oysters, fish, fries, vegetable polenta and green salad all done in a please-every-taste range of flavours from Cajun to Moroccan, Greek, French and Indian. Like the food menu, there’s something for everyone on the smallish and well-priced wine list including a number of Tasmanian wines that have been beautifully aged.

Graeme Phillips