Replete Providore, Hawthorn by Bureaucrat

Melbourne, glorious Melbourne. I've only been back for a week, but everything feels so right, so normal...the world makes sense again. London is but a horrible, horrible, pasty white dream.


London, may I introduce you to sunshine?


Sunshine makes things grow, such as flowers.

No less than two days back in Melbourne, Beaker, along with Bubba Chuck, and I had lunch at Replete Providore. Eating at RP has been on my long list of 'to eat' places. I've known about this place for about four years, but never managed to get there. From the outside, it looks small, but there's more seating towards the back of the restaurant. We sat in the back rooms, as it had more space for Bubba Chuck to run riot. Ensconced in a corner of a large table, which had plenty of comfy cushions, and our orders.


To drink, a thick banana and honey smoothie for Bubba Chuck.


Bubba Chuck got the kids' chicken nuggets with chips. Good chunks of tender chicken breast in a crispy light batter, and even chunkier chips. Bubba Chuck quite liked her dish and even allowed us one nugget each to try. I quite liked the fact that it wasn't oily (I think it was all baked in the oven).


Beaker got the vegetarian breakfast. This was a very generous serving of poached eggs, roasted tomato, field mushrooms, hash brown, spinach and house baked beans with toasted sourdough bread. Beaker, who has been to Replete before, quike liked her dish too. I tried a bit of the hash brown (in the foreground of the photo), and it was definitely one of the best that I've had. Floury and well seasoned, and not at all oily. Beaker also particularly liked the baked beans.


I got the corn fritters with smoked salmon, poached egg and a tomato-chilli relish. While I've been away, I've read with much envy of Big Fil's and Snooze's breakfast meals - especially when they order the corn fritters. I'm glad to say that Replete's corn fritters were very corny, fluffy and filling, but it had a smidge of cumin in it, which I didn't really care for (I'm not a fan of cumin). There was more smoked salmon than I had expected, and I really liked the tomato relish, which had a deep tomato and savoury flavour (I can't stand relishes that are too sweet). This was such a big serve that I couldn't finish the dish - even with Bubba Chuck and Beaker sneaking a few forkfulls.


Even though we were all quite full, Beaker said that we had to try the ricotta hotcakes. Three big, fluffy hotcakes, with a zingy lemon curd and sweet, fragrant strawberries. It was topped with something that was like a lemon streusel topping and a dusting of icing sugar. Beaker liked the fact that there were evident bits of ricotta in the hotcakes. I really liked this dish. Sometimes I find that pancakes are never as good as I had hoped, but in this case, the hotcakes were well executed. The flavours and textures worked really well with each other.





Verdict
Food - 9
Ambience - 7
Service - 7
Price - 6

Overall
The serves were big and the quality of the food was high. This was reflected in the price. Perhaps even the location of RP also added a few extra dollars to each dish.

It was pricey, but it was great. Not for everyday, perhaps. But it certainly lived up to its name - we were definitely replete.

Address
Replete Providore
302 Barkers Rd
Hawthorn 3122
Telephone: (03) 9818 4448