Montalto: The talk of the town

On the weekend, Mornington Peninsula Vineyard and Restaurant Montalto made it's yearly venture into the city at its Montalto In Town event in Prahran. Taking over woodworking studio Arteveneta for two nights, the restaurant treated around sixty guests total to five courses selected from the restaurant menu. Each course was paired with a wine from a Montalto property, to give the full experience one would receive at the actual venue down in Red Hill South.

One of the many displays inside Arteveneta.

I attended Friday night, the first night, and had never been to something like this before. It was not my first visit to a vineyard restaurant, so I expected maybe a modern restaurant with the staff simply replaced by Montalto's team of chefs and waitresses. But I was surprised to see a single long dining table in the large room, at which every guest was to sit. The room was full of vintage, 'rustic' paraphernalia, including saw blades, a renaissance-era painting, wooden furniture, a chess set, large wooden letters spelling out 'Arteveneta' and many other interesting objects. These were placed around the edges of the room and on the walls, serving as a backdrop quite at odds with the food and wine on offer, it felt like a traditional building, whereas the menu seemed more contemporary and fresh to me. I'm sure this is what they were going for.

The setup before we took our seats.

Head Chef Gerard Phelan addressed all the guests as we sat down in our places, telling us a bit about what we were in for, and where the food was coming from. He spoke of the focus on using local produce in the dishes, which is always a great thing when it comes to sustainability and supporting local business. It was my first time eating from the Montalto menu, and on some of the dishes I ate certain ingredients for the first time ever, such as eel. I have to say that I was very impressed with everything I had, each course was a pleasure to eat and the wines all tasted excellent. A standout dish was the beetroot black pudding, which has the texture, taste and nourishment of a beef patty, delicious! My least favourite food element was the wasabi greens, I had a hard time finishing them, but they're likely very healthy so I don't mind. With meat being so sparsely used on the menu, this experience made me rethink my stance on becoming a vegetarian. I do love to eat meat, but really didn't think about it much on this night, where I felt perfectly full and satisfied from a few courses of vegies!

Through mingling a bit with our neighbouring guests at the table, the consensus was that all the food and wine was excellent, although I spoke to a couple of other men who wished for there to be something like 'a nice rib-eye' included among the many plants, a very understandable complaint. I had a very enjoyable night full of excellent food, fine wine and hilarious conversation with some people I would never had otherwise met. At this point, I intend to do my best to go to this event if it happens again next year. I may have to visit Montalto Restaurant itself in the meantime...