I had dinner last night, or more accurately a heavy snack, at Cumulus Inc at 45 Flinders Lane in Melbourne. The location was great, about three blocks from my hotel. The restaurant is very casual with tables, a drinking bar and an eating bar looking into the small kitchen. I was able to watch a lot of the food prep activity, which in some restaurants would be scary but at Cumulus demonstrated the attention to detail that is so critical for good restaurants. The guy opening my oysters went over each one with a paintbrush, brushing out flecks of shell, sand or whatever from the opened oyster. The person doing salad sorted through each bowl of leaves tearing off the tough lower part of the leaves so only fresh young greens were used. So much attention is being given now (rightfully) to fresh local ingredients but without attention to detail during prep, the ingredients are wasted. I had one each of three different farmed oysters from the same "oysterage" (the menu's term). It was interesting to see how differently the oysters tasted based on the way they were raised. What we would need to get in the wild from different regions we can now get from one producer using a variety of micro environments.
Cumulus is worth another visit.> >