Rustica Canteen
11 Februaru, 2016
In an old brick warehouse down Guildford lane lies a new contender in Melbourne’s gourmet cafe scene.
Rustica Canteen exudes industrial chic. Think exposed beams, polished concrete floors, large retrofitted windows and rustic wood trim.
A hipster’s paradise.
Like at the Robert Burns Hotel, the kitchen is an open accessible space where the evolving art and science of cuisine is on display. Communal tables cement food and drink as a social practise, both uniting and separating diners over their daily latte. The cakes and pastries are encased in glass, referencing the French notion that food is not only sustenance, but can be creation fit for a museum.
Rustica preferences locally produced, seasonal ingredients. They use their signature sourdough as a medium of presenting the cuisines of multicultural Australia. The lunch menu offered sandwiches and salads with fillings from Spanish, Italian, Mexica, Greek, Polish and Thai traditions. Any hope of selecting a meal low in FODMAPs was dashed by the too-cool-for-school waiter. "No gluten free bread. And almost everything has onion and garlic."
I settled on my safest option, a Greek inspired baguette spilling pulled Victorian lamb, tzatziki, lettuce and cucumber. It was a dish which consumed me - instead of the barrier created by a knife and fork I was able to truly feel the textures of the ingredients as I ate with my hands. The sharp crust of the homemade sourdough against my palm, lamb dissolving on my tongue, garlicy yoghurt dribbling down my chin...
This was not elegant dining, but it was experimental. It was sensory. Perhaps not quite art, nor was it remotely futuristic. Yet there was somewhat of a subversive element to the scene playing out around me: countless bodies in the black and white uniforms of commerce and bureaucracy, with sandwich fillings smeared across their faces. Behind the sterile professional masks lay… gasp… human beings united in the primal act of survival.
But don't just take my word for it, check them out for yourself.
33 Guildford Lane
Melbourne, Vic, AU 3000