This charming gem of a venue has only 12 words on its menu

Sometime a place comes along that makes running a restaurant look so simple that you wonder how or why it would ever be complicated. Food is cooked, brought to tables, people eat, there’s some kind of energy exchange – sure, and money, too – and everyone feels happy and fond of humanity. That’s The Pontian Club: a new Greek restaurant at the city end of Smith Street.

The tone is set as you walk in. There’s an open kitchen at the end of the dining room; you see the glow of charcoal, the swift, steady choreography of chefs, hot flashes of capsicum, a cool pool of herbs. Here, and in a rear room, worn brick walls are hung with vintage family photos.

The tables and chairs tell tender stories, too: they’re from The Old Raffles Place, a Singaporean restaurant that closed recently on Johnston Street (and now lives large as Mary’s).

There’s a rawness to the paper tablecloths, tumblers for wine or ouzo, the zippy, smiley floor crew who make service seem obvious: isn’t it just about observing and caring?

Grilled lamb fillets with tzatziki.Bonnie Savage

Mates Alessandro Brunetti (landscaper turned waiter) and Bertie Pavlidis (ex-Donati’s Fine Meats, a specialty Carlton butcher) hoped to recreate the fun, beery times they’d had in Athens. They started cooking for friends at Brunswick’s Pontian Club. A friend roped in up-and-coming chef Oscar Tan, then at Gimlet, and he turned barbecues for mates into more polished pop-ups.

Early in the year, this shop on Smith Street came up. The guys took the keys to have a look and, over the ensuing weeks, half-dreamily started scrubbing the walls, collecting hard rubbish to deck out the place, and getting to know each other better. Somehow, they made a restaurant.

There’s no simpler menu in Melbourne. It’s about 12 words long, with just one for each dish: eggplant, lamb, fish, salad. The brevity creates a mood. You either give all your trust to the kitchen team, or build a rapport with your waiter as they explain. Not that there’s heaps to say.

It’s about letting simple ingredients shine, a through line of fire, salt, lemon, olive oil and love.

Eggplant is roasted over coals and mashed with wine vinegar, olive oil, oregano and parsley grown by Bertie’s mum (The Age gardening writer Megan Backhouse; his father is Good Weekend illustrator Jim Pavlidis).

Fava beans are blitzed with caramelised onions and topped with capers. You’ll need bread: the house loaf is a crusty, ciabatta-focaccia hybrid laced with bush honey.

Fava with caramelised onion and capers (left) and coal-roasted eggplant.Bonnie Savage

Grilled lamb fillets, dashed with vinegar for brightness, are paired with tzatziki: you’ll find them under a shower of herbs. Fish (rock flathead, usually) is a little more complex, dressed in the pan with a buttery fish stock. But, overall, it’s about letting simple ingredients shine, a through line of fire, salt, lemon, olive oil and love.

Bertie’s and Al’s mums make the cakes, and there’s gentle competition as to which is selling better: the olive-oil pound cake or the bay leaf and ricotta cake (have both: let’s go for a tie).

The very Victorian wine list includes Greek grape varieties; I had ouzo, which felt right.

The Pontians are Anatolian Greeks, many of them ejected from Turkey’s Black Sea coast, their home since ancient times, during forced repatriations in the early 1920s after the Greco-Turkish War. Many Pontians later came to Australia. Pavlidis thinks his papou may have been Pontian but, despite not being particularly tapped into the local community, this young trio of owners has been embraced. And why not? The experience is charming, and extremely good value: this is a gem of a place to dine.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine

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

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