Bridging the quiet span between the busier eating hubs of Northcote and Thornbury is 8-month old Northern Eatery, Anastasios Stamatiou’s first venue in Australia. The interior is casual and comfortable, the bar area featuring dangling bulbs and wooden wine display fixtures put together by Anastasios himself.

Its Modern Australian menu courtesy of chef Dimitri sees touches European influences for this season. The zucchini noodle salad comes with carrots, spiced chicken, cherry tomatoes, chervil and a parsley pesto. TThe grated zucchini strips are shorter than what I imagine noodles to be, but it’s still a decent zucchini salad. Our favourite dish of the night is the lamb backstrap. Crispy strips of beetroot have a slight sweetness, the cauliflower puree is deliciously velvety and the salsa verde has a great zing. We wanted more.

The beef bourginon may not have the most appealingly coloured sauce, but you can’t deny it’s tasty and the flavour of the red wine is quite distinctive. The lamb cutlets are cooked well and the lemon rind cuts through fattiness of meat. Rustic chat potatoes have that super-crunchy-yet-creamy texture that I love.

We end with the dessert special, the Aperol jelly, with oranges, strawberries and almond praline. It has plenty of refreshing elements, and has a slight bitter tinge of alcohol from the gin and tonic granita.

It would be easy to pass by Northern Eatery on the way to the more popular foodie hotspots nearby, but there’s some good stuff going on that may be worth checking out if you’re in the area.

Disclaimer: I was invited to Northern Eatery as a guest, however, opinions expressed here are purely my own, and are based on my experience at the time

Northern Eatery
468 High St
Northcote, VIC, 3070
Facebook
(03) 9077 0555