The Providore: a plentiful pantry!
PUBLISHED July 26th, 2013 03:00 am | UPDATED April 14th, 2016 03:22 pm
Mandarin Gallery harbours an unlikely new tenant called The Providore. For a café with this much ambition and flair, the pompous air at the high-end Orchard Road mall might be an incongruous fit. However, with recognisable industry names stacking the odds in the gourmet café’s favour even before we taste anything – Toby’s Estate, Huber’s butchery and Bakery Artisan Original all throw their weight, and quality ingredients, behind the counters of The Providore- the chances of a great meal are upped significantly!
And boy, count those tai tais lucky – the rustic, white-panelled 45-seater dishes up a carefully-curated smorgasbord of offerings across three continuous meal periods. The menu of the last period, which stretches from 3pm to 10:30pm, rises above routine to give tired in-mall competitors like Jones the Grocer and Wild Honey a run for their money.
An introduction of Tomato Toasts ($14.50) is spectacular, rendering the café more relevant in some hipster dining enclave, or for that matter, along some cobbled high street in mid-town Melbourne. Rounds of cherry tomatoes perched atop buttery crostini are soft and warm from a slow roast, collapsing instantaneously in the mouth. The tang is matched by a drizzle of balsamic glaze, and simultaneously cut by a spread of warm, milky goat cheese.
The tumult of flavours continue. A Pork Involtini ($22.50) is rolled around a stuffing of pecorino, pancetta and sage, a combination that hits textural high notes and serves as a salty-rich counterpoint to the well-seared pork. A pear and raisin chutney swings the flavours in a sweet direction, but a generous garnish of watercress oscillates through a dash of bitterness. Executive Chef Saffry Rahim’s competent grasp of flavour balance is further validated by a dish of Grilled Quail ($18.50). Any gamey-ness of the crackling quail is tamed by a laquer-like coat of honey-balsamic glaze. Candied walnuts, dried fig and feta cheese are like mistresses that give different twists of a tryst with the quail – some toastiness from the nuts, some plum-like scent from the figs, some sharpness from the cheese colour each bite with panache.
Tart endive, sweet apple, citrus pickled onions and meek radish are shaved to similar thickness in a vibrant salad ($12.50), collapsing like a pack of cards splayed out on the plate. The adjective ‘exciting’ and the noun ‘salad’ becomes a less awkward co-existence. Gorgonzola cheese, with its blaring funk, is a welcome round-up.
The outstanding food quality at The Providore implores one to take a quick sweep at the retail shelves that line the path to the kitchen’s hot window. As swerving servers in black dodge your behind, gawk at the museum of immaculately-packaged teas, stocks, jams and paraphernalia that are actually used to prepare your dinner.
Save for a dish of unexciting meatballs and a lychee mocktail of fatal syrup proportions, the culinary – and entrepreneurial – sensibilities of owners Robert Collick and Bruce Chapman filter through. Their mission to create a uniquely local, original gourmet concept is a breath of fresh air in a market brimming with knockoffs. We cannot wait till we try The Providore’s breakfast and lunch menus, perhaps at one of their next offshoots likely to happen in quite the near future. And, god forbid, nowhere near Mandarin Gallery.
Written by Mr Nom Nom
On this occasion, the meal was compliments of The Providore.
