PROFILE BY BEST RESTAURANTS
some. Cuisine trends have gone from nouvelle, to all you-can-eat, to the sharing-is-caring of tapas, to molecular gastronomic clouds of mushroom dust. Stratos Pouros has refused to soil his dishes with culinary dirt, foams and gels. He offers steak, meat, steak, meat, and some seafood – several with a nod to the US of A. Louisiana crab cakes, Roquefort salad as a pre-main, southern style chicken, and soup promising "the taste of America". The latter conjures brow-raising possibilities, but turns out to be rich seafood chowder. Speaking of rich, while C & C's dated furnishings have refused to budge, its menu prices have been more than happy to keep up with the times. The friendliest priced steak is (cut your own), aged Scotch fillet starting at $38 before saucing. Vegetarians who have lost their way are asked to pay $24 for the lasagne, and $12 for a side of mushies.
Those who have dined here since the day when it had more "hey", may find the daggy décor endearing. Gold palm trees, wall rugs, and faded gaudy ‘80s window canopies however, are not to everyone's taste (along with bowls of oily over-cooked veg). And after 30 years the presentation of laminated menus stuck on cumbersome aluminium cleavers is now more than a little awkward and kitsch too, bless them.
Happily the famed steak is still a drawcard. Melt-in-your-mouth memories are nice to keep. The Cleaver's much-loved meatballs continue to serve as complimentary greetings to diners. These days they have been rolled out into a home product line, and you can literally buy them by the bucket load.
Roz Taylor