The restaurant: St Jude’s Cellars, Brunswick St Fitzroy
The occasion: Date night
The bill: pretty cheap - $120 for two entrees, two mains, one dessert, one coffee, and one bottle of wine.
Overall rating: 3.5/5
St Jude's Cellars is a restaurant that has always appealed to me from the outside, but for some reason I had never made it through the doors until last night. My first impressions on crossing the threshold were promising – it is nicely fitted out, with its high ceilings and ample glass creating a feeling of openness and airiness that was very much appreciated on a warm Thursday night. Although the restaurant looks from the outside like a place where exceptional attention-to-detail could be expected, there were a few areas that were lacking. The napkins were disposable but of reasonable quality, and perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening came when I visited the bathroom and found that the hand soap was the generic, heavily scented, fluorescent pink variety that is more commonly found in food courts than nice restaurants. The commonality with which Aesop products grace Inner North restaurant bathrooms has clearly left me spoiled.
The table service was casual but friendly. While I can live without some of the absent nuances of fine dining, some of the more important finer details were also missing. We were served by three different waiters throughout the course of the evening, which meant that we were occasionally asked the same questions twice, and occasionally ignored for slightly longer than I would have expected. On a number of occasions our conversation was interrupted by a waiter, rather than the waiter... ahem... waiting... until an appropriate time to ask a question. We had to request that our bottle of Sancerre was put in an ice bucket after it sat on top of an adjacent booth for long enough to warm slightly – which was interesting because white wine for other tables, including an identical bottle of wine to ours, seemed to be put on ice immediately, so I doubt there was a deliberate or technical reason that ours was left out. One of our waiters also mentioned a second wine list, but never actually produced it, which seemed strange. Bread was delivered to the table with a bread plate but no butter knife. Our shared entrees arrived without an additional plate to eat them off, and the cutlery wasn’t changed between courses. Despite those minor gripes, the waiters were consistently pleasant and reasonably attentive, and that is more important to me as a diner than any of the other aspects of service.
For the entree we ordered "corn fritters" and "freshly cracked walnuts wrapped in prosciutto with apple" to share. The corn fritters were plump, crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside. They were tasty but quite heavy, and one of the serving of three was more than enough for me – though I think that is more or less in the job description of a corn fritter. The walnuts were less “wrapped in pancetta” and more “served with pancetta”, and the apple was actually just half a Granny Smith on the side of the plate. The dish proved impossible to eat with a knife and fork. We ended up chopping the apple in half again (this was difficult enough with a butter knife) and going all Medieval on the dish – picking the walnuts and pancetta up with our hands and biting into the apple for a mouthful at a time. Whether that was how the dish was intended to be eaten I'm still unsure. Overall the flavours worked well together, the pancetta was well hung and tasty, but the apple wasn’t juicy enough to balance the dryness of the walnuts.
For mains we ordered "gnocchi with pesto" and "salmon with smoked pig fat and asparagus", along with a side of "potatoes with racquelette cheese". The gnocchi was soft and well cooked and the pesto was flavourful, if a little too abundant. The salmon was perfectly cooked and the smoked pig fat was a delicious addition. The potatoes were generous and tasty. The mains did take a long time to arrive, and had obviously been left under heat lamps for some time between kitchen and table.
Dessert was a strawberry and walnut mascarpone cake. The biscuit base seemed a little soggy, and unfortunately the fresh strawberry on the side had been cut with a knife that had obviously been used for garlic immediately beforehand. There’s a reason that strawberry and garlic aren’t one of those classic flavour combinations. My espresso was slightly acidic, well extracted, and had a nice thick crema. It initially arrived before dessert, but in the most attentive service of the night, the waiter noticed our spoons on the table, deduced that we were still waiting for dessert, and offered to bring back a fresh espresso afterward - a nice touch.
Overall the night was pleasant, and we left having enjoyed a nice evening at a reasonable price. The serving sizes were small but priced accordingly. The food was generally good and occasionally excellent, but attention-to-detail was missing in many aspects of the overall experience, and it is those small details that change a night from “pleasant” to “unforgettable”. St Jude’s Cellar is perfect for a nice night out with friends, but I wouldn’t book it for a special occasion and it lacked the ambience for a romantic rendezvous. If I ever go back, it will be for a boozy lunch on a Saturday afternoon in the summer heat.
Food: 4/5
Wine list: 4/5
Waiters: 3/5
Ambience: 3/5
Value: 4/5
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