Charcoal Lane

LOCATION
Close to Brunswick Street and Gertrude Street trams, short distance from the CBD.

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
Charcoal Lane has the potential to not only be a great restaurant but also a truly inspiring project. In conjunction with Mission Australia and the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, this enterprise offers traineeships and apprenticeships to young Aboriginal people within the restaurant. It’s an ideal location – the former bank building previously housed the Health Service and has always been a place for Aboriginal people to gather, share each other’s company and stories, and to pass on wisdom. Now they have an opportunity to hone their skills and build their careers in this fine dining space. Starkly painted ceiling panels, native flowers and beautiful handcrafted “eel trap” lampshades lend a modern feel to the room and also symbolise the coming together of cultures.

The menu similarly echoes this vision, employing global food styles while intertwining native Australian ingredients. It allows for innovative, fresh cuisine from appetising bites (fried school prawns with lemon aspen aioli, spiced yam fritters with bush tomato chutney), to heavier fare such as spiced Bendigo duck breast with confit leg and quandong jus, peppered kangaroo fillet with shallot and bush tomato tart and rosella flower jus or roasted mulloway with peas, white asparagus, lemon myrtle and samphire. Simple, well executed desserts include raspberry cannelloni with rosella flowers, strawberry and native mint or compressed melon with mandarin, yoghurt sorbet, custard and honeyed oats. Local produce is used wherever possible and native ingredients are never slavishly used but incorporated naturally throughout to impart a unique flavour to dishes.

Angela Costanzo