A Must Do If Dining in St Kilda
Overlooking legendary St Kilda Beach in Melbourne, you will find dining institution, Stokehouse and on a recent trip, we thought we would check out their Ultimate Dining Experience, and we were glad that we did.
Stokehouse which originally opened its doors in 1990, was rebuilt in 2016 after a disastrous fire swept through the building in 2014. The main dining room offers floor to ceiling windows, offering views of St Kilda Beach and is bright and spacious.
I had already booked the Ultimate Dining Experience and we were offered three different wine pairing levels to compliment it. We went for the mid range pairing which featured all Australian wines.
To start our experience, we were presented with a tray of bite size morsels which included Yellowfin tuna belly and melon bite, Summer peach, thyme and verbena tartlet, and Beef tartare, Oscietra caviar jacket potato. Although, I’m a fan of Beef tartare, my favourite of the trio was definitely the tartlet which featured a very light shortcrust pastry.
After a great start, we were presented with the legendary Stokehouse premium seafood platter. On offer was scallops, mussels, marron, ocean trout rillette, and Stokehouse’s take on a prawn cocktail. I was hard pressed to decide whether my favourite was the marron or the prawn, both incredibly fresh and tender.
Next up was Stokehouse’s take on Fish and Chips, or in more fancy terms, Steamed Snapper with a tomato sauce vierge, lovage verde and picked celery served with Saltbush and vinegar potato cakes (or potato scallops!). I would go back to Stokehouse, just for this meal alone.
We finished the savoury offering of the menu with an incredibly tender Wagyu 6+ scotch fillet served with Ratatouille in a smoked tomato sauce. By this time, we were both struggling to fit everything in as one of the great things about the Premium Experience Menu is that the portions are very generous.
We had a short break before being offered a Strawberry and Champagne Sorbet palette cleanser, in readiness for our dessert which was a creative take on an Australian classic, the Cherry Ripe chocolate. Stokehouse serve their cherry ripe as a log with milk chocolate ganache, poached cherry and cherry sorbet. It was a refreshing dessert and a great way to end a fabulous meal.
There’s a reason why Stokehouse has been an institution on the Melbourne Dining scene for over 30 years, and now that we’ve experienced it, we will definitely make it a must do on our next visit to the Victorian capital.
