Oscars Table

Crispy Skin Salmon was excellent, nice wine list. It would be great in summer.
Sadly now closed.

It was early evening in the Docklands and we hadn’t been in Melbourne for more than a couple of hours. The neighborhood wasn’t looking too promising for us to satisfy growling stomachs — not because there aren’t plenty of restaurants in the area, but because the glassy expanses of this newish district were simply not that welcoming. Everything felt a little pretentious for a couple of guys that like to keep things casual.
I normally don’t like to be approached by a restaurant’s employees while I’m looking at a menu in the window, because who wants that kind of pressure? In this case, though, the bartender/​server probably saved us from further indecision and subsequent crankiness. He came out and told us it was happy hour and that we should try the tapas. All I heard was cheap beer.
The inside of the restaurant is a loving… almost creepy… shrine to all things and quotes Oscar Wilde. It’s an unusual theme for a restaurant, but I appreciated the bookish quality and the plethora of quotes abounding on many surfaces.
And the food was great — we made do with a few tapas that energized us for a night of exploration. These included clams with chorizo, pork ribs and lamb cutlets. The lamb cutlets were served with what I think was some spaghetti squash, and the pork ribs included a slightly spicy slaw. Everything was prepared well and hit the spot. So, thank you bartender, for approaching us and bringing a little humanity to the glassy cool façade of the Docklands.

Coffee took 30min to come out (they weren’t THAT busy), baked eggs were just average and the toast was not worth the extra $ 2. Table next to me had one meal arrive but not the other so one of them left without eating. Other ppl around me were pretty ‘meh’ about their food. Nice position in Docklands, which probably makes it that couple of more $ expensive than it should be. They could do a lot with the breakfast food if they wanted to