The Town Mouse

Great Modern Australian dishes from this restaurant-​cum-​bar around the lygon st area. The dishes are of sharing portions. We ordered 8 items from the menu for the 5 if us and that was too much for us — probably due to the drinks-​conducive ambience of the place. Must-​try dishes include the red cabbage, beef intercostals, and sweet corn. We also loved the chicken breast, baby snappers and chat potatoes. All these dishes were very well cooked and wonderfully complemented by the most appropriate dips. The fried school prawns is a definite must to go with beers. The oysters were very fresh, with the most enhancing sorbet accompanying it.
If you are around the area, and looking for delicious, well-​prepared dishes to share over beers or wines, do make it a point to drop in (although prior reservations is strongly advised).

Excellent food and service. Menu required some explanation but sever was most helpful. Our first Melbourne dining experience; set s high bar.

Great little place tucked away in Carlton, superb food, loved the wine list and the service was great! The roasted red cabbage is a must have!

NO. I LOVE YOU. STOP.
The Town Mouse was my Big Treat to myself on my last visit to Melbourne in April 2015. It was on my radar thanks to a number of people, on Unilocal and in the industry. It’s apparently on everyone’s radar – only last month the Town Mouse was listed 18^th on the Age’s top 100 restaurants for 2015. Cool.
Taking yourself on a date can be pretty great, and the Town Mouse promised me they’d take good care of me. I was sat at the bar (favourite spot for a solo dinner!) and gave myself over to the lovely staff, letting them drive my dinner choices and matched wines. This was, hands down, the best matched wine experience I’ve ever had. The way a wine can not only complement the flavours on the plate but enhance those flavours, and vice versa, was something I hadn’t truly experienced until my night at the Mouse.
The one place I was steered only slightly wrong was the pig jowl. It didn’t sit well with me at all. And I wasn’t served the cabbage dish that everyone’s raving over! Again, I’m sure if I’d requested it then it would have been given to me, but I was happy to let them feed me. I was steered right back on track after the jowl misstep with one of the best desserts I’ve ever eaten. I’ll always choose the dessert that doesn’t have chocolate, and citrus is my jam, so the lime posset almost made me cry. Perfection. So good. Yes.
An extra shout-​out to the staff. I wanted to be friends with every single person on service. Personable, a little cheeky, and constantly on the ball – my favourite kind of restaurant staff.
P. S. to the staffer I didn’t make a bloody mary for, I forgot all the promises I made to you, please come visit next time you’re in Hobart and I’ll make you the best mary you’ve ever drank and you can HOLD ME TO THAT ok bye sorry again I’m the worst

Read some mixed reviews about Town Mouse, most of the bad ones relating to the portion sizes (ie, small), but I thought I’d head over there for lunch today. Nice little space in Drummond Street, Carlton; black tiled walls, a little semi-​circular black would bar in the centre, and enough table seating inside for about 30 people, with another 8 – 10 around the aforementioned bar (where I was seated).
They don’t have a tasting menu, so I decided to do the honourable thing and create one for them, ordering a selection from their starter menu. First up were a couple of Coffin Bay oysters for $ 4 a shell, served with chardonnay vinegar sorbet, lemon and a little bowl if seaweed. The oysters were creamy, salty and beautifully complemented by the tangy sorbet. The seaweed made a nice pallet cleanser before the next morsel — smoked duck liver parfait and pickled cucumber sandwiched between a couple of wafer thin slices of crisp potato. This was also very good; creamy, slightly sweet and very light on the tongue while still managing to retain a rich flavour.
Next was smoked eel brandade — a very light, fishy purée with a hint of lemon — sprinkled with parsley and served with very thin slices of toasted sourdough. Delicious.
Calamari in a grapefruit, clam, oregano & fermented elderflower sauce followed. The calamari was served in thin, little-​finger sized strips with similar sized slices of zucchini. Interesting, but a little too tart for my taste.
Still peckish I moved up a notch to the shared plates, choosing a brand new entry to the Mouse menu which even my waiter hadn’t had the chance to try yet — duck breast with Jerusalem artichoke, a halo of greens and horse radish, drizzled with a porcini sauce. Sounded good. Was good! The duck was gorgeous, rich with a thin layer of delicious fat and slightly sweet, which the slight bitterness of the artichoke offset beautifully. And the porcini sauce was to die for. Great dish.
I have to disagree with the critics. While the portions aren’t huge, they’re a certainly not mouse-​sized and perfect if you want to try a variety of dishes, which I generally always do. Also, I’d rather have a little bit of something very good than a lot of something mediocre, and the Town Mouse definitely delivers the former option.
Other pluses, the wine list is eclectic (I had a glass of Spanish Cava with the starters and a nice glass of Sicilian Nero d’Avola with the main) and reasonably extensive, and the service very friendly and fast without making me feel at all rushed. This one’s a keeper.

A parfait was amazing, the red cabbage was spectacular but the best feature was the bartender who could make whatever you asked. My cucumber gimlet was extremely tasty.

fabbo

The words «Holy crap this cabbage is AMAZING» sounds like the kind of phrase that is followed by «said no one, ever». Except it was said… and without a hint of sarcasm, because it happened at The Town Mouse where every morsel is tastier than the last.
Town Mouse has been on my radar for some time and is definitely the kind of restaurant that is easy to fall in love with on first visit, making you wonder why you haven’t been before. The restaurant is smallish and intimate, with bar stool style seating at both the bar, and several tables of four which they use to accommodate couples (they don’t make you bang elbows with strangers here) or small groups.
Initially we wanted to come in for some veal tartare and some small plates, but ended up being swayed by the 500g beef intercostals. That meant we couldn’t sample as much of the menu, but we knew it would be worth it. Throwing in two sides (perfect caramelised cauliflower and that seriously good slow roasted red cabbage dish) had us rolling out the door. We ate in total silence, bar a few eager nods and eye rolls, before opening our mouths again to rue wearing a belt to dinner. If you’re going to tackle this dish — bring an appetite or another couple!
They take bookings here, which I would definitely advise, because this place is no hidden gem. On sleepy Monday night with very average weather, this place filled fast.
This is date night 101; sleek style, perfect service, interesting wine list and incredible food. If you come here with someone you’re into, you’re going to have a good time.

Wow. This place is awesome. Ticks every box as a perfect high-​end Melbourne eating spot: amazing food, flawless service with lots of personality, value especially with the food, diverse and interesting booze list and a seriously beautiful fit out.
We came in with a group of 6 and let our (amazing) waiter take us on a food wine journey (i.e. we didn’t bother looking at the menu). For $ 60 a head the chef will feed you a hearty, shared degustation which i highly recommend. I also recommend asking the waiter’s guidance on the wine list as it is a little challenging and there is a lot on there that is a little out there but worth trying.
There wasn’t a single thing that we were fed on the ‘feed me’ experience that didn’t hit the spot. We began with a profiterole with filled with goats cheese with a honey and pistachio sauce. Then there was a charred cabbage dish with prunes which was amazing. We had perfectly cooked and seasoned beef with a side of potatoes which is much more gourmet than I have described it… The radish and whipped feta was crisp and comforting at the same time. The fish had us wanting to lick the plate because the sauce was so delicious (don’t judge sometimes its necessary). I think there was more but we did attack a large chunk of the wine list so I am probably forgetting things.
The wine list covers a broad range of classic styles, organic and bio dynamic, natural and orange wines. Our waiter knew the list inside out and guided us towards wines that matched our food and listened to what we liked etc and chose suitably a different bottle each time. They can also make a mean negroni and coffee.
This is a place I will be taking melbourne visitors to for sure. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

It is all too easy for a city’s dining scene to get stuck in a loop of endless trends. Not that trends are bad per se, they are popular for a reason, but seeing Mexican eatery after Mexican eatery open, pop-​up after pop-​up, ‘dude food’ after ‘dude food’, it all becomes a bit staid and boring. Which is why it is exciting for a new opening to break the mould and push boundaries rather than trying to fit into a trendy box. The Town Mouse promises to bring a dash of Kiwi inspiration and experience to Melbourne’s dining and bar scene, and it definitely delivers.
The food by chef Dave Verheul, is technical, adventurous, without disappearing into retro molecular mayhem, and, most importantly, delicious. The menu begins with small nibbles (‘To Start’ and ‘Raw’), perfect companions to a cocktail, which might be crispy school prawns, well-​seasoned and dusted with sesame, with a pool of unctuous rouille to drag them through. The ‘russian roulette of chilli peppers’, the padron, are grilled until succulent but not falling apart, smoky and served with a subtle tarragon cream. However the perfect bite has to be the profiterole, crisp choux pastry filled with creamy and tangy goat’s cheese, with a divine thyme-​infused honey (from their own hive); it is the perfect balance of flavour and texture.
Designed to be able to try most of them on the menu are the ‘To Share’ plates, appetiser-​sized but probably the most adventurous on the menu, turning secondary cuts into exciting dishes. Squares of lamb belly, with that immaculate taste of crisping lamb fat, dehydrated carrots that look like charcoal but have a vivid carrot flavour are lightened with artichoke and a light dressing of goat’s milk. Veal breast is, again, perfectly cooked, with a rainbow of heirloom cauliflowers, a crackle of puffed wild rice and smoky parsnip. Beef cheek is slow-​cooked, lightly coated and then flash-​fried into crispy chunks that flake apart at a nudge from the knife, but it is the dots of black garlic purée and a tangle of parsnip threads brought to life with a yuzu dressing that jump across the palate. A similar burst of flavour is found in the smoked carrot kimchi on another dish, paired with crisp green apple and miso– and Dijon-​marinated pork jowl, slow cooked and then fried until meltingly crisp (the current iteration of this dish sees the pork married with charred octopus).
There is a definite trend and reverence towards turning humble vegetables into explosions of intense flavour throughout the menu, but more obviously in the ‘Vegetables’ section of the menu, where these are dishes in their own right not shunned as side dishes. Textures of kale (crisp, sautéed) and comté foam (one of the few molecular tricks on the menu) hide a slow-​cooked egg; the burst yolk oozes its way though the dish making a decadent sauce to coat the crisps of kale. This was easily a highlight of the meal, but held strong competition from an unapologetically large hunk of red cabbage, slow roasted, with chunks of prune and apple and rich, salty parmesan. Both of these dishes are worth running down to the restaurant right now for, before spring hits and the warming winter dishes give way to lighter, more appropriately seasonal ones.
On the more substantial side are the ‘Meat & Fish’ dishes which range from large (the 900g slow roasted saltgrass lamb shoulder and the 600g roast half wagyu rump cap) to more main-​sized dishes which work well after grazing through the earlier half of the menu. Autumn and winter is still visible in the curls of pink duck breast, matching well with pine mushrooms and the nutty tones of caramelised yoghurt and sprouted wheat (an ultra-​trendy ‘activated’ grain but easily forgiven because the crunchy and chewy texture adds layers to this dish). Moving into spring is the Hapuka, flakingly well cooked, with peas and pistachio, brought together by sweetly acidic buttermilk and verjuice.
In a highly competitive year, The Town Mouse is one of the best new openings in Melbourne, the perfect answer to an evolving dining scene looking for more casual options but without losing the adventurous nature and precision of fine dining. You will feel as at home having a few drinks and nibbling on some of the smaller dishes as you will settling in and grazing through the many highlights of the menu. This is one of those restaurants which brings together the perfect marriage of amazing food, exciting drinks and down-​to-​earth but professional service. For me it is almost impossible to choose a ‘Best New Restaurant’ this year in Melbourne (although I do have my final two), but the good news is that I do not need to choose, for gems like The Town Mouse are there to make everything else fade away into the background and to make life better (although hopefully next time without the gunpowder rum-​induced sore head the next morning). And yes, the business cards do glow in the card.
You can read the full review at my website.

It’s not often that I feel intimidated conceptually by food, but I’d liken the experience I had last night to eating contemporary art. Every dish was beautifully composed (on stoneware made by the chef, might I add) and perfectly executed.
The majority of plates are designed to share, and it’s recommended that you choose 8 or so for a group of 4. This is pretty spendy, with shares starting around $ 14 and larger plates from $ 35+. We had the oysters and duck liver mouse for an amuse bouche, potato cous cous, shaved calamari, venison tartare, grouper, veal, and a sampling of the desserts. Everything was explained as it was served, and the service is excellent.
They also offer cocktails and a huge wine list that they’re well-​versed in. The crowd is understated but artistic, mirroring the food. Definitely a place to take someone you want to impress.

Classy fit out and the black shiny wall tiles work a treat. Inside there are 6 high tables (each seating 4) and 4 bench seat tables outside. There is also a courtyard, which I didn’t view given the miserable weather. Not sure whether the table set up lends itself to a romantic dinner for two.
The menu is varied with a range of meats, fish and vege and it has an equally interesting wine list with reds, whites and… oranges! I opted for the Duck Breast with caramelised yoghurt, sprouted wheat, elk leaves, wild mushrooms and a side of kipfler spuds cooked in toasted hay with buttermilk, crispy sage and almond brown butter. The presentation was first class; however, the duck was a little chewy at times and there’s only so much sprouted wheat you can eat and still enjoy. The Town Mouse is definitely classy and the menu shows that they know their way around a kitchen; however, I’d like to sample another dish before raising expectations any higher.