There are plenty of ways to spend a Sunday afternoon. Depending on your situation – hung over or not – you could go swimming or for a bike ride. You could read a book or go to the movies. You could even visit your grandparents if you’re feeling particularly ambitious. Most Sundays, I’m feeling a lot of things but particularly ambitious isn’t one of them. So to pacify my indolence I usually take on small tasks: 1) find a place that is comfortable enough to spend the entire day, 2) gather nice people, 3) stay in that comfortable place all day and do things you like that are fun and easy. Things that are fun and easy: watching meat cook on a spit between the hours of 12 and 6pm, drinking a Bloody Mary, sangria and/or a beer or a few, eating the meat that you've been watching cook all day.
There’s a place on Northcote’s High Street where, if you, like me, enjoy all of the above listed pastimes/activities, you can find fulfillment. Not only does The Estelle have a sizable back courtyard with fake grass, fluoro lawn chairs and an open spit roast (only on Sundays), it is also charming, considered and everything I’ve tried on the menu has been a success.
I’ll take you through the most recent day I had there: brunch started around 11. The heaping Bloody Mary that couldn’t have been placed in front of me fast enough had the right amount of kick and definitely did the job. I went with the poached free range eggs on very seriously char-grilled sourdough toast with salmon gravlax (smoked) and feta. Pretty standard as far as the better end of brunch goes in Melbourne. But it was simple, which I appreciated, and beautifully presented. Throughout our meal, the chef went back and forth between the back yard and the kitchen to tend to the charcoal under what would soon be a mesmerising multi-sensory feast (i.e. it’s amazing to watch an animal cook for so many hours, you will inevitably smell like meat/smell meat for the rest of the week if you sit near it for too long and it’s delicious).
We left to go to
a literary event for a few hours and it was a good thing we didn’t have to participate because the Bloody Mary's were pretty strong. After, we were hungry and thirsty again. Even though there are plenty of other options and we didn’t have to subject ourselves to the embarrassment of going back to the same table, we did. Maybe I really pushed for it, maybe my friends were already convinced.
Doesn’t matter. The sangria was fantastic as were the croquettes and the white bean puree with lemon and yoghurt. The daily potted meat was a sweetly concocted pulled pork, as it seems to often be (no complaints there), which, paired with the salty char-grilled sourdough, was perfect. And all of that even though we were crowded under the umbrellas, trying to shield ourselves from the rain and the increasingly thickening smoke coming from the, as I’ve already admitted, mesmerising pork rotating on the spit.
The menu is quite traditional but changes constantly as do the cocktail and wine lists. It’s the second collaboration between Greg Amor and Coe Garland (good names! they’re married to each other) after Rrose Bar in North Melbourne. The subtle-ish homages to the space’s former function as a butcher shop quaintly add to the eclectic “a little bit of everything we love” sort of design scheme. There is literally a surprise in every corner, because they are consistent in so many ways – like I really believe that someone’s mother’s friend just had that crockery that matches the wall tiling just lying around in her garage – it makes the inconsistencies all the more compelling.
The Estelle is open Tuesday-Thursday 8am-11pm, Friday and Saturday from 8am-midnight and Sunday from 9am-11pm. It is located at 243 High Street, Northcote. Call 9489 4609 for reservations.
Photos above by Ken Irwin and Eddie Jim.