With Fear in My Heart and Love on My Mind I am Still Hunting Melbourne's Best Date Spot

VICE is reviewing all of Melbourne's best date spots. See Old Palm Liquor, Bar Margaux, Yakimono, Gerald’s Bar and Capitano.

I stopped trying to explore “Melbourne’s best date spots” when my resolve decayed under the dawning horror that it might actually all be the same.

These nu-wave white people bistros, that form a cacophony of gorgeous averageness across the entire city, love to whack an anchovy on a slice of bread and call it a $17 snack. It’s all so depressing. What are we doing here? Where is “here”? Who is “we”?

But then I went to Sydney, and I saw that some parts of Sydney want to be Melbourne soooooo bad. And I thought, I need to be damn appreciative of what we have here. It really is special.

So what if every second date spot is a laid-back-but-chic bistro with a parquet floor, martinis and oysters on the menu, and an offering of “European classics” meshed with “modern Australian” favourites? At least here when I pay $17 for anchovy toast I know they’re not gonna fumble it.

I recently attended Poodle on a date and it was really, really good. 

The place is very swank. It has to be, positioned, as it is, on the swankiest strip of Fitzroy, counting Marion, Morning Market and the Everleigh among its neighbours. But aside from its tasteful decor, white table cloths, bistro crockery and elegantly presented staff, Poodle manages to affect a certain laissez faire energy that I can support. 

There is something about the bistro which, although it teeters on posh, feels chic in a way that is authentically cool. This is probably something inexplicable, the power of great marketing, or perhaps even the name, “Poodle” “Pooooodle” “Poodle Fitzroy” – all of which sounds about as jaunty as the venue is. Or perhaps it’s something to do with their menu. 

Because the food is so. Damn. Good. 

Yes. Not only is the interior gorgeous, the food at Poodle is very, very good.

We enjoyed two cocktails, one being a Poodle Tini – as I recall, a martini with a petite cocktail onion in it – and one which for the life of me I cannot grasp the name of, a springtime breeze or something to that effect, and I implore you to get it. Ask for the citrus adjacent one with little droplets of olive oil on top. Sweet and intensely sour, the stringency eased by the olive oil which generously lends a supple mouthfeel. Between us, we had three.

We didn’t eat a lot, but it was all very good. We had a few little tasters of the chef’s selection: What looked like a blini but was a little rye pancake with whipped cream and chive, a taramasalata vol-au-vent, the freshest mussel in the world topped with a vividly terracotta nduja creme, the best devilled egg experience of my life and kingfish crudo with fennel… Is yellowtail crudo/sashimi/ceviche the it-girl dish at the moment? Or is it only because I seem to order it everywhere that I am noticing it everywhere? Are they in season? Do fish come into season? Let me know. 

The dessert was a moist chocolate cake, with creme and a berry coulis sauce to finish. Basic? Maybe. A classic, done very well? Yes.

Let me level with you: I usually skip dessert, as something broke in me years ago and the pure nascent joy usually delivered by a sweet treat evaporated, replaced by a sickening dread and general fear every time something saccharine touched my lips.

But this cake was insanely good. So good that even I, a dessert hater, ate it right up.

It wasn’t sickeningly unctuous or filling, rather, elegant, and its sweetness caressed my palate with the delicate fingertips of a deity, balanced as it was with the cool neutral creme and wet sourness of its berry lube. No fear. All was well.

I had sat in the courtyard before, and at the two-tops by the “public bar” in the past, but this was my first time in the bistro. From the grey walls covered in vibrant artworks to the blue and grey checkerboard tiles, to the families and dates seated around us, there was plenty to look at. 

Overall, whether you opt to go supremely casual out the front, in the bar, or in the courtyard, or whether you choose to swank it up a bit in the bistro – it’s basically as close to an intimate, sexy, effortlessly cool date spot as you could want. Plus, any place offering signature cocktails tenfold more delicious than classics deserves all of the love. 

What gives me the right to be a critic? Nothing. My credentials are being a hot girl with a voice and a platform, and by all that is true and just: you will hear my opinions. 

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