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	Melbourne Restaurants supplied by Fairfax Digital

Comme Kitchen by John Lethlean, 28 July, 2006 The old Mietta's returns in fine style as Comme.

Address 7 Alfred Place, Melbourne
Phone 9631 4010
Style Restaurants
CuisineFrench, Spanish/Portuguese
Hours Lunch midday-2.30pm Mon-Fri; dinner 6pm-10.30pm Mon-Sat; bar menu midday-midnight.
Details Licensed.
Payment Bankcard, Visa, AMEX, Cash, Mastercard, Diners Club.
Price Guide Entrees $10-$17; main courses $26-$29; desserts and cheese $11-$16

Comme - the bar, the events space, the kitchen - is nothing if not a statement of outrageously good taste, which doesn't always go hand in hand with buckets of money, but in this case clearly does.

There are several places you might eat at Comme: the dining room, obviously, or the long communal table at the front of the glorious main bar, or Comme Wine Room as it is officially known, but if you're shrewd, patient, or both, you'll try to snaffle one of two limey, grainy solid timber tables that are on either side of an impressive glass walk-in "cellar" beneath pendulous lights of undoubtedly chic pedigree, so you'll need to be a group of six or eight.

If you're really smart, you'll sit on the leather-buttoned banquette and stare out at a room full of Melbourne's more beautiful thirtysomethings corralling around the marble bar, sprawling on vast leather ottomans or perching on high stools at even higher tables.

From a menu inspired by France, Spain and the Basque territories some would like to see independent of both, focus is on the "small plates". At least over dinner. Nipping in here at lunch, you'd almost certainly do a superb "large plate" striploin steak (porterhouse) - grain-fed meat from the John Dee brand - with sauce bordelaise and Montpelier butter (with a side-order of fries, of course) or a few pieces of excellent free-range chicken served with a roasted garlic veloute sauce, crisp shards of pancetta and a nest of crunchy green beans.

But at any other time, exploit the "small plates": entree-sized (usually) dishes to share. Things such as the tiger prawns sauteed in garlic and cherry tomatoes with Pernod for a delicious anise hit. Or the baby calamari - like short, fat condoms - stuffed with a mince of tentacles and pork, served with an almond and paprika romesco sauce.

A series of tastes, maybe a frisee salad, bread from another van Haandel joint venture (Il Fornaio) and you'll be ready for a poached pear with Pedro Ximenez sauce and Valrhona chocolate cream, or maybe the stunning raspberry soup with creme fraiche sorbet and black pepper.

And if you sample enthusiastically from the rather special wine list, you might start asking yourself if you can afford one of those amazing light fittings hanging provocatively above the bar. I know I've wondered so several times after a couple of glasses of Kooyong pinot. I have it on good authority I can't. And you probably can't, either.