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	Melbourne Restaurants supplied by Fairfax Digital

Verge by John Lethlean, 29 August, 2006 A restaurant with a sense of purpose and style.

Address 1 Flinders La, Melbourne
Phone (03) 9639 9500
Style Restaurants
Cuisine International, Japanese, Modern Australian
Hours Mon-Sat noon-3pm, 6pm-10.30pm.
Details Licensed.
Payment Bankcard, Visa, AMEX, Mastercard, Diners Club.
Price Guide Typical small dish $16, typical main $33. Corkage: By arrangement, $15 per bottle
Score16/20

I like Verge. Always have. But I think I like it more now than in any previous incarnation, including the launch period, when three ex-Luxe staffers put their heads together to create something special in a rather special location, opposite the Treasury Gardens. And parts of the restaurant remain just as they were back then, testimony to the investment in good design that was so much a part of the restaurant's schtick. The spare aesthetic; the timeless furnishings and accessories; the emphasis on wine.

Other parts have, however, developed, not the least of which is the rather excellent, original food of chef Dallas Cuddy, who served as understudy to his predecessor, Karen White, for 10 months before taking the helm. Cuddy's is a bold, highly individual cuisine fusing lots of Japanese ingredients with a modern cooking style. It's a style inspired by a year at Nobu in London.

Where nine restaurants might serve a green vegetable such as broccolini with some kind of Mediterranean dressing, Verge is the one in 10 that smothers it with a simply delicious, light dressing of sesame oil whipped with smoked tofu and black sesame seeds. Salmon gets a bonito hollandaise; venison is served with buttered cabbage, marinated figs and braised daikon.

Following the simply perfect oysters ($3.50 each) is a duck breast marinated in a miso-based paste. It has been roasted - but super rare - and sliced thinly over a salad of mango, mint shreds and pickled daikon ribbons. It's almost like duck sashimi, but the long curing process of the marination has changed the texture from raw duck meat to something exceptional. With it is a wafer of rice crispie - a deep-fried rice-and-nori cake - and a tangy, miso-based sauce splodged in dots of diminishing size ($16.50). Quite an exceptional dish.

Yuba is used again with a rolled rabbit loin, wrapping the chicken mousse-filled meat where crepinette would more conventionally be used. It gives the roasted rabbit roll - served sliced - a lovely "skin". A mix of small, sauteed mushrooms beneath the meat adds an earthy dimension. There's a pasta parcel of more robust leg meat on a spring onion puree and a light jus spiked with ginger splashed on the plate, with a few pink and green sprouts scattered for decoration ($33.50). It's classical with a twist, and shows plenty of technical ability. Clever.

Personally, I reckon the way to go here is three entrees and dessert, because the latter show all the care, precision and spark of the savoury dishes, and the smaller dishes seem to me just that bit more interesting. A millefeuille ($13.50) using super-thin layers of compressed filo, between which the chef puts poached pear and a chestnut-chocolate mousse, is quite something else. Reiterating the pear-chocolate relationship is a grainy pear sorbet on top, while the plate's perimeter is dotted with cubes of Pedro Ximenez jelly. Brilliant.

As is the entire offer at Verge, given what you've read already. Bearing in mind the attrition of restaurants in Melbourne, even the good ones, it's very satisfying to see a place such as this embarking on its second five years with such a positive realignment of the core values. A good different.