‘A true revelation’: Why you should book this peninsula destination diner in an old theatre

About a year ago, while spending a few days in a South Melbourne recording studio for book-related purposes, I stumbled onto a lunch deal that seemed too good to be true. For $35, the Clarendon Hotel was serving two courses plus a glass of wine, which would be decent value under most circumstances. But the thing that set it apart was the quality of the food – I was bowled over by a sweetcorn custard topped with mapo tofu, followed by blue-eye trevalla with mushy peas and a gorgeous and exacting potato nest. For $35 (with wine!), it was astonishing.

Wanting to investigate further, I reached out to the management. But I was too late – the Clarendon, they told me, was closing the following week. (It is now under new ownership.)

Who was the talent behind that magical lunch? Turns out it was Ryan Spurrell. That obvious fine-dining execution was no fluke: over the past two decades, Spurrell has held jobs at Vue de Monde, as head chef at Estelle in Northcote, and as chef de partie at London’s three-Michelin-starred The Ledbury.

South Melbourne’s loss was Rosebud’s gain: in September last year, Spurrell and co-chef and business/life partner Sarah Cremona opened Orson in what was once the arcade of the Broadway Theatre, built in the 1920s, on the main strip of the Mornington Peninsula town.

In a nod to that history, the long dining room is outfitted in art deco fixtures, giving it a glamorous, mirrored ambience that makes you feel sexy as soon as you step inside. There’s an eight-seat white marble chef’s table at the back of the room, a repurposing of the original ticket booth. (I’m less taken with the odd neon light feature above that chef’s table, which snaps you out of the fantasy and detracts somewhat from the overall vintage vibe.)

Spurrell and Cremona (who brings her own impressive professional kitchen experience to the enterprise, including being an alumna of Noma founder Rene Redzepi’s MAD Academy in Copenhagen) are intensely focused on showcasing the bounty of the surrounding community, and on providing a flexible menu that has the potential to unfurl like a degustation, or to be consumed as a far more casual meal. You pay for the number of courses that suits you and the kind of evening you’re trying to have, and the value gets better as you get greedier: two courses will set you back $75, while seven will cost you only $140.

That fine-dining acumen I experienced at the Clarendon is on full display here, but more personal and rooted in place. A risotto nero is studded with squid from Lakes Entrance that was diced so exactingly it made my knife-skills-loving heart sing. Imbued with saffron and squid ink and dotted with tiny purple chive flowers and mustard leaves, it is one of the prettiest and most elegant dishes I’ve had recently.

There are two kinds of terrines on the starters list, neither of which are something I’d classify as a terrine, but I’m also not mad about it.

The first is layered tomato set in clarified tomato consomme, served with a smattering of wild rice and eucalypt oil. It could have benefited from a touch more salt, but it did do justice to the freshness and sweetness of the season’s bounty.

The other is one of the more ornamental and involved dishes I’ve experienced lately – a smooth confit of ox tongue, layered with dense confit chicken thigh, topped with golden raisin gel and seasonal flowers; meaty and decadent and fresh all at once.

If I found the bouillabaisse under the snapper a tad murky, I was revived by the fun of a yellow patty pan squash stuffed with gochujang-spiked bolognese that came alongside a rosy pork loin and jowl.

And a dessert of goat’s cheese sorbet with fresh grapes, surrounded by a brilliant liquid made from chardonnay lees and topped with a crystallised vine leaf, was a true revelation. (Spurrell later told me that all the components come from one small-scale producer, in Rosebud, Matt Lugg. “It honours the vineyard, the winemaker and the full life cycle of the harvest whilst reflecting on the grape’s journey, shared between producer and diner,” he wrote.)

Orson is a restaurant with a huge amount of ambition at its core: the ambition of this couple as chefs and restaurateurs; the ambition of a town to step into its rightful place as a must-visit for all kinds of wanderers; the ambition of a region to be recognised as one of the world’s great pantries.

The trick will be finding the balance (fine dining v casual, destination v local hangout, special occasion v weekly date-night spot). But Spurrell and Cremona are exceptionally gifted cooks, and they bring an immense amount of heart, technique and talent to this restaurant. Those things are enough to balance almost any act.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.