San Telmo Melbourne

User Reviews of San Telmo, Melbourne

Displaying: 1 - 5 of 5 reviews

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food 8 Ambience 9 Service 9 Value 9

What a brilliant hidden gem. Exactly the sort of dining experience I was hoping to achieve in Melbourne. I had never heard of the restaurant and was purely lucky enough to stumble across it whilst cutting across a laneway back to my hotel.

The staff were extremely friendly, decor sophisticated yet not over the top pretentious which I sort of feel is the vibe they are seeking.

The food was simply delicious. I have never been to an Argentian restaurant before and I can gladly say that is no longer the case. I look forward to my next trip to Melbourne.

Apr 13, 2012

Kcorslee
82

6.5 Recommended

Food 7 Ambience 7 Service 5 Value 7

In an increasingly fickle world, initially distinguishing oneself from the amorphous mass isn’t about the drawn-out process of natural selection. It’s about starting out with a big bang. Cool laneway location? Tick. Unassuming facade? Tick. An informally-set venue with bare tables, bistro chairs, low lighting and signature black black black? Tick. A buzz that rises to a raucous clamour both inside the venue itself and on the omnipresent 21st century Foucauldian Panopticon that is Twitter? Tick. Melbourne’s celebrity cuisine of 2011? Tick.

The recently-opened Argentinean restaurant, San Telmo, has it all — a veritable magpie hoarding all the biggest trends in Melbourne dining. At first glance you wouldn’t realize its claimed Argentinean heritage and inspiration, apparently named after the oldest neighbourhood in Buenos Aires. It’s decked-out very much as a Melbournian, though not your typical metrosexual in monochromatic minimalism.

It’s more a grunting macho, overlaid with floor-to-ceiling cellars on burgundy carpets, buttoned leather chaises that intimately enclose dining threesomes, and plush cow hides, tanned saddles and buffed leathers hammered onto the black walls — a robust cocktail of gaucho ranch meets lusty matador meets Cuban cigar and whisky lounge. Instead, it’s inside the toilets (of all places!) wall-papered with Argentina’s famous and infamous porteños, that San Telmo’s culinary focus is more definitively alluded to.

With regards to seating, one may choose to perch up at the window sill to stare down passserbys or at the now-mandatory open kitchen, distinguished here by heavily-tattooed chefs and one war machine of an imported parrilla grill. Otherwise, and arguably better for those who have not yet lost the art of a conversation longer than a Tweet, there’s a cluster of tables in the main seating area that’s generous for a group of three or more, but probably too-close-for-comfort for couples.

The food (including the strapping desserts) at San Telmo comes generally well-rendered, staying very close to the no-frills agenda of a typical Argentinean parrilla. Perhaps, it errs too close tough, because in its restrained flavours and pared-backed simplicity, there’s a sense of a repressed creativity that sparks in some dishes and would be welcome in more.

The venue’s ambience likewise resonates with that same sense of cultural suppression, compounded by the blasé nature of the service, incongruous as it is to the warmth that one would normally associate with South American hospitality. There’s no denying that San Telmo is a mostly enjoyable, unpretentious place to dine-out in, but apart from its strong desserts, the all-Argentinean wine list and the Argentinean words peppering the menus, it’s more a transfusion rather than a transplantation of South America.

In truth, it feels no more and no less than a more overtly masculine brother to existing Melbourne share-plate and/or meat-oriented restaurants. Indeed, it reminds MoMo & Coco very much of the recently-opened Aylesbury (a Spanish-accented pan-European that delivers more consistent service though).

Nonetheless, San Telmo is welcome for broadening the diversity of Melbourne’s dining landscape, and for signalling its next evolutionary stage, that is bringing into mainstream awareness, the gastronomic culture of one previously-ignored region of the BRIC bloc. As the excitement of its initial big bang dissipates, as the drone of natural selection progresses, San Telmo will hopefully wear its Argentinean colours more confidently, daringly and proudly — in the aspects of food, service and ambience. MoMo & Coco do not want to cry for Melbourne’s Argentina, especially one with such promise.