Cutler & Co

Perfect location in a gorgeous old building in Fitzroy, designed to take advantage of the old brickwork and high ceilings. Staff are efficient, attentive and friendly without being overbearing. Food is fantastic, we lashed out and had the suckling pig which was to die for… highly recommend it to everyone.

Was visiting from San Francisco and heard lots of good things about this — on food lists at several magazines so decided to give it a go. Was impressed with the staff, first and foremost. Very polite, professional and seemed genuinely appreciative you are their guest for dinner. Food was creative and delicious. Absolutely terrific waitstaff tended to our special requests without the attitude you sometimes get. Very nice experience, Greg D

Great place for lunch and finning both. I am local here and always love these little places and happening part of my town

So after an initial fumble to get orders down and drinks sent over, it was super smooth sailing from that moment on. What a restaurant. I’m not surprised it has rave reviews. This place was off the charts good. From the service, to the ambiance, the food and drinks, dessert was beyond … not to mention the palate cleansers between courses — a fizzy mandarin fruit tingle tasting shot of greatness !!!
We were celebrating a birthday and decided to go all out — whatever we desired and whatever quantity of the dish or drink we wanted — so what do 4 ladies on a mission to try everything do? Order pretty much the whole menu and spend all night picking at this incredible food, chinking glasses at every top up, chatting to the sommelier and staff for what the next round of drinks should be — before we knew it, we were shutting shop and the staff, despite them starting their clean-​up routine, allowed us to remain at the table, laughing and joining in on our conversation — such a wonderful night mostly brought upon by the incredible staff at Cutler & Co.
Every appetizer, entrée, main and sides ordered were on point — busting with flavor and texture — uffff I can still taste the oysters, the padron peppers, zucchini flowers, oh dear god the quail, all 3 sides — radicchio salad, potatoes and broccoli. must focus Maria. I can’t finish off a review without mentioning the dessert — wow, Im pretty sure I break one of the seven deadly sins everytime I head out to a «special» restaurant during the ordering of dessert– I become this excessively insatiable person whos eye’s are bigger than their stomach … in fact, all 4 of us were at Cutler & Co — I even finished mine off with a superb Tokay. All dishes were highly memorable and a perfect end to such a perfect evening.

Lots of fun and the best pork belly I’ve ever had.

Coming from Brisbane for a week I decided to take my partner out for a extra special dinner, the choices were endless but I decided Cutler & Co sounded like the place to be. Decided to go with the degustation menu as I’d never had the chance of doing anything like that, despite being a chef myself, and wanted a nice selection of their amazing sounding menu. I definitely choose well because we were both astounded by perfectly balanced, yet surprisingly different dishes. Well done Cutler & Co, not only on your delicious food but efficient and helpful staff, seemingly reading my mind by being right at my side when I needed something. If I’m ever back in Melbourne I’ll be sure to try the menu again.

I’d put Cutler up on a pedestal with all the reviews and general talk that it’s one of the better dining experiences in Melbourne.
It’s stiff as you walk in which wasn’t helped by one of our waitstaff being pretty odd — several completely random remarks over the few hours, and two spilt drinks left me pretty puzzled.
This was the most ARIA like dining I’ve had in Melbourne. That’s either good or bad depending on how old you are and what engages you when you’re paying at this price point.
Mains are typical contemporary dining style. Medium rare cuts of red meat with bone marrow, poached chicken with asparagus. There’s no flair in the ingredients or presentation.
The bites and entrees are a bit more adventures and come off as a tame take on Cumulus and Supernormal.
Which brings me to the sticking point. I don’t like stuffy environments like Cutler came off as this night; there were two tables of people talking so they could be heard — the «…our last summer on the Amalfi coast was just so splendid» type talk… The woman on the table to our left was mimicking the Amalfi Coast loving woman on the table to our right.
Then the food which is on par with Cumulus quality wise but lacks the flair or imagination…
If you like your dining more rigid than most places in Melbourne and a fairly traditional contemporary dining menu to boot you’ll love Cutler.

Cutler & Co. It’s considered one of the best restaurants in Melbourne and offers a tasting menu. It’s located in Fitzroy which is two steps and a skip from Brunswick. The décor is really great and modern with it’s open kitchen. We arrived after a long day of sight seeing and I was starving. After having Grossi, I really wanted to see what else Melbourne had to offer in culinary art.
My cousin and I decided on the tasting menu. Actually, he didn’t have much of a choice. I told him we were getting the tasting menu and he couldn’t say sh*t since I’m the older one and I was paying for it. Well, that or get kicked in the face.
1) Tuna Tartare — This came with Fromage Blanc and Bottarga. To be honest, this wasn’t really impressive. The texture of the tuna wasn’t as I anticipated. It wasn’t as nearly as delicate as some of the omakase I had in my life where it just melted in your mouth after two bites.
2) Pickled Mussels — This dish was accompanied with cuttlefish and vegetables. The presentation was great but it didn’t taste like it was pickled at all. The veggies definitely saved the dish. It was crisp, fresh and very earthy.
3) Flounder — The Flounder fish came with Black leek and pickled onion. I’ve noticed that Aussies love their Flounder fish and lamb. Every tasting menu I had in Oz had Flounder fish and Lamb on the menu. Anyway, this was definitely one of my favorite dishes on the menu. The fish was seared. It had a crispy outer shell and the texture of the Flounder fish was delicate. The flavor was sweet and easily broke apart in flakes.
4) Smoked Duck Breast — The Duck breast was tender and full of flavor. It wasn’t gamy and I definitely enjoyed this dish. It was accompanied with salsify, prune and radicchio. The radicchio was great.
5) Dry Aged Lamb Saddle — Aussies and their lamb. It’s very hard to cook lamb and not have it come out gamy. The lamb was tender and full of flavor but it was just too gamy for me. I think it had a lot to due to the size of the meat. The cut was almost two inches thick, which in my opinion is too large. Maybe they should try to sous vide it.
6) Melon, Cucumber and Buttermilk Ice Cream — This had an interesting flavor. I was expecting sweet but I got sour. Kind of like how when you first start dating someone. The sourness kind of hits you out of nowhere like a person bitter at their life’s choices.
The service was good but it wasn’t extraordinary. I don’t know why it wasn’t extraordinary. Maybe it had to due with how we were dressed. Everyone looked like they just got off of work and I’m there with my NWA t-​shirt.
Overall, it was a good dining experience and the dishes all had interesting flavors. The flavors were definitely unique to Australia. I would totally recommend Cutler & Co whenever you’re in Oz.

I went with friends to Cutler and Co and had an average to good experience. The place looks good and the service is great but I am now thinking this place is slightly overrated. We had tasty drinks and wine and most of the entrees were also good but the desserts ruined the experience. The raspberry-​meringue one was overly perfumed and only tasted of roses and our second one so bland that I find it hard to remember what it was. Stay away from sweets and you might enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I am about to write a rather negative review of our experience at Cutler & Co. However, the manager did recognize their errors near the end of service and provided considerations for the trouble.
My wife and I travelled to Australia from the USA for our honeymoon. We are both foodies, so much of our trip is focused on good food. One of our cornerstone reservations was at Cutler & Co. We had read multiple accolades about how it was one of the best restaurants in Melbourne and were very excited to celebrate here.
The space is very modern and fun. It is broken into several different zones. Up front there is a bar area surrounding an open kitchen where you can watch the cooks at work. In that same area there are wall booth tables that are rather pedestrian. The back two sections were very lively and had a good feel to them.
Our travel agent made a note on our reservation that we were on our honeymoon. Unfortunately, this note was missed when we were seated, as we were sat at a lone table in the front of the restaurant… Completely segregated from the rest of the restaurant. Honestly, it may have been the worst seat in the house.
The cocktails were tasty. I had a whiskey drink, and my wife had a pear spritz. Both were solid. We also ordered a bottle of wine to go with our dinner. Strangely enough, our waitress poured the wine before we finished our cocktails.
Our appetizers were good. Oysters, cheese cigars, and jamon Serrano were tasty, and led us to believe the night was turning around. We decided on ordering the Ribeye steak to share. It is 1.1 kilo. Call us dumb Americans, but we didn’t fully grasp the size of this steak until it was served. I will take fault for that, but it would have been helpful for our waitress to maybe alert us to its size, instead of up selling us on side dishes.
The steak was fair. Flavor was good, and as previously stated it was HUGE. I just wish it had been butchered better. It came out pre-​sliced, and 3 of the 6 slices were overly fatty or had large sections of sinew (leaving them inedible).
Most of this I can forgive. However, at no point during our meal did our waitress check in to ask us how our meal was. It was like she did her job just by dropping off the food at our table. If she would have asked, she would have learned that our steak knives were rather dull and should have been replaced.
After the manager overheard us complaining to each other, he stepped in and tried to make the best of a poor situation. I give him credit for that, and it’s why I didn’t give them less stars.
We finished our meal and went on our way with an overwhelming sense of disappointment. Hopefully the remainder of our meals on our honeymoon exceed what we experienced at Cutler & Co.

This is special occasion type territory. Either pray your Great-​long-​lost-​Aunt leaves you a hefty inheritance, or save your pennies in advance, because an evening here is going to cost some serious coin. Sure you could have a reasonably priced experience if you scrimped on all the extras like Champagne on arrival, cheese courses and digestives at the end but where’s the fun in that?
The fussiest of all the restaurants in the Andrew McConnell empire, Cutler and Co takes food, wine, service and ambience to the highest levels. It’s not my favourite kind of dining because it all feels just a little bit TOO serious, but I do like it very much and would gladly return… if someone else were paying.

I cannot begin to explain to you how perfect dinner at Cutler & Co was. We showed up early on a Sunday evening between lunch and dinner not realizing they we between meals. One of the servers poked his head out the door and said if we didn’t mind waiting a few minutes he would set us up with a drink outside and seat us the moment they opened. From that point on the night could not have goe any better. The service was beyond compare. The three different servers that waited on us were our friends by the end of dinner. The wine list had only quality wines. Dinner was beyond our expectations. Quality ingredients cooked to perfection. After three weeks traveling around Australia and New Zealand this was our bet dinner without a doubt. I would put Cutler & Co against any of the bet restaurants here at home in New York. Hoping for a Brooklyn location soon.

I had my parents down from Queensland recently and wanted to try a degustation that offered a vegetarian and pescatarian option. Cutler and Co was the closest and most reasonably priced place I found.
While the night was as interesting as dinner with ones parents can be, the place itself was good. A lot of lights, but particularly dim. The interior was interesting, and it is a good place to sit with 2 – 6 people. I dare say they do larger tables, but it seems better to accommodate smaller groups.
There was a full bar, and an extensive wine list. They were able to accommodate our dietary requirements on request.
All in all the place was good, but a couple of things have dropped my review. One was bringing out the wrong course not once, but twice. One course they gave all four of us chicken. Including the pescatarian and vegetarian. On a meal that wasn’t meant to be chicken even for the normal degustation. And then they swapped the last two pescatarian dishes around. Luckily, the Sommelier must know what they’re doing and paired the correct wine. She was also full of great information, she was very impressive.
The other thing to note was that they charged us incorrectly at the end. When you’re paying 700+ on a bill, I don’t expect to be charged wrong. The vegetarian degustation was charged at the full rate.
Overall: I wouldn’t go back for the degustation, I would go back for the food and atmosphere, and I will be checking my dishes and bill.

I’ve been meaning to try this place for awhile now and finally got around to making a booking for Sunday lunch today.
The first thing that struck me as I walked in the door was the open plan kitchen which is located right at the front of the restaurant. I had a table behind this and sat on one of two long benches that run down both sides of the room. This used to be a metalworking factory and it still has a warehouse-​like feel about it with high ceilings and distressed brick walls. The lighting is subdued and the music so soft that it’s almost subliminal.
Lunch on Sunday is a fixed menu consisting of three appetisers, four entrees and a choice of two mains and dessert with the courses changing every week.
Today’s offering started with A Coffin Bay oyster, marinated olives and a seaweed cracker topped with eggplant and sesame. The oyster was just that — a single oyster in its shell that tasted like the ocean. The olives were served In an elegant curved metal dish with a second metal dish for the pits. The cracker had two blobs of puréed eggplant, and was quite spicy and very tasty.
The first of the entrees was Kingfish sashimi served on oyster cream and topped by wafer thin slices of apple and daikon (a very mild tasting variety of radish). Great combination, subtle but delicious.
Zucchini flowers with buffalo ricotta and herb emulsion followed. This was refreshing and light, a little bland after the kingfish but the creamy ricotta and minty emulsion made an interesting combo.
Hay baked carrots came next, served with goat curd, walnuts and roasted grains. The carrots were juicy and sweet and perfectly cooked, retaining a hint of crispness that was echoed by the nuts and grain. A small serve of Jamon Serrano was also presented, and these two dishes actually worked very well together.
I’m not a big fan of white fish but decided to venture outside of my comfort zone and ordered the spiced bass grouper. Good choice. The flesh was slightly firm and tasty and the accompanying stewed pecan greens tossed with a few fresh mussels and spicy emulsion really complemented it.
Dessert was diced fresh strawberry with meringue, crushed pistachio, sorbet and lemon verbena. Divine.
Cutler and Co’s website describes their approach to food as a «balance between elegance and simplicity» and that pretty much sums it up — really fresh ingredients beautifully prepared and presented. And at $ 75 a head (plus another $ 50 for matched wines) it’s got to be some of the best value eating in Melbourne.

What’s not to like about Cutler & Co? From the awesome area in which it is based to the glass fronted wine room. From the open kitchen to the funky lights. The gorgeous plates and tables to the indoor outdoor room. And the food, oh the food! Cutler and Co rocked my little world!
We went for a lunch date to celebrate my birthday and it met the brief all too well. The service is great and they even gave me a little surprise candle in my desert to mark the special occasion!
We well be heading back here as soon as we can!

Certainly made our 10 years anniversary a night to remember. Thank you to all the staff and compliments to the chef. The service was seamless and what you would expect from staff who take pride in their work.
Their John Dory was quite literally the best fish I have ever had. The only other time I have eaten fish that was nearly that good was at Nobu. Nicely done Culter! The smoked duck breast was perfectly cooked, like a medium rare steak, yum! Good selection of wines, probably hard to make a bad choice.

I had eyed off this place for an eternity and needed the right ‘excuse’ to splurge… along comes my brother with an announcement that he was engaged… done! The service and overall venue are outstanding… no question. However, and maybe it was the hype that I had built in my head, the mains were a little disappointing. It is a limited menu which is fine but the pork ribs that I had with sour kraut and sausages was good, no doubt, but the best I’ve ever had, no. HOWEVER the desserts, oh the glory! There were five of us and five desserts, one of each we screamed! Simply outstanding — a deconstructed apple sorbet that resembled a well manicured forest floor, rhubarb and milk tart, pear pudding, earl gray ice cream — I would go there again just for them…

Best New Bars 2012
BY SHARKING FOR CHIPS AND DRINKS
I am sick of paying $ 18 plus for a run-​of-​the-​mill cocktail. No matter what your skillset is — don’t try and convince us that 3 – 4 minutes of your time and the ingredients are worth that much. I want a super-​duper experience if I am going to dapple in the dark side of mixology and the prices that come with it. I am as enthusiastic about shabby local bars as I am destination venues and everything in between. One type is not ‘better’ than another, it all just depends on what you are looking for. So how do I recognise if I am in one of these magical places? Community, passion, atmosphere and overall execution. These are a few joints I cherish:
Eating at Andrew McDonnell’s Gertrude Street restaurant is a joy in itself, but this was THE best bar experience of the year. Why? There is nothing better than going into a bar and feeling well looked after — like no request is too much, no detail too small. Drinks aren’t that cheap — but staff go the extra mile and sitting in the industrial-​chic space is such a pleasurable experience that you can’t put a price on it. It’s all about drinking accoutrements — mixers served in laboratory-​looking apparatus, a side glass of extra martini so you can top up your glass at leisure and silver saucers for olive pits.

For sure this place deserves 5 stars. Really great menu, great wine selection and superb service. Definitely in the fancy category as well. Both in the presentation of the food and the restaurant itself. Definitely give this place a try — I don’t think you’ll regret it.
And the little complimentary peanut butter cups they gave us while we were waiting for the bill were crazy delicious.

Believe the hype. Chef Andrew McConnell does it right. Again. Thanks to my sister who lives in Melbourne who was smart enough to make reservations way in advance for dinner during the Christmas period. When my brother-​in-​law parked the car along the section of Gertrude St where the restaurant is, he asked «Are you sure you’ve got the right address? This part of Gertrude St doesn’t have fancy restaurants.» Yup, we were at the right place. We got out of the car and walked a bit and saw the sign for Cutler & Co.
As much as this place offers some amazing and excellent food, the atmosphere is unpretentious although classy. You could come in your dress or a suit or even dress jeans if you prefer, and you won’t feel out of place. Our server did a great job in explaining the menu to us as well as some of the specials they had which were meant for 2 people per order.
Some standouts were the cured kingfish with avocado purée, radish, and bonito flakes. The smoked roe on cracker was also very good as an appetizer. My medium rare beef loin was very good as well. They had a suckling pig on special which could feed 2 people and my sister and bro-​in-​law got that. We washed that all down with some excellent wine.
Cutler & Co received a restaurant of the year award and it’s not difficult to see why. I’m a fan.