It’s Tuesday lunchtime in Melbourne and I’m having trouble getting a table at Pope Joan. The dining room is abuzz. Workmates are gathered around a marble table, each of them unwrapping a Reuben sandwich. A solo woman taps merrily on a laptop with a hot buttered rum: she’s an advertisement for living one’s best life. Paris-end shoppers take a load off to load up on a “super bowl” that makes quinoa look like a treat.
A chandelier casts a sheen across golden wallpaper and though there’s plenty of chatter, the dining room’s carpet keeps the volume to happy hubbub.
Apparently, rumours of the death of the city have been greatly exaggerated. There are people, they are spending, and they look like they’d do it all again tomorrow.
My vicious side eye forces a couple of lunch daters to finish their macchiatos and re-enter the urban fray; their table is reset for me and now I’m part of the lunch rush, too.
So let’s eat: the food is generous, confident, wide-roaming and delicious. Seaweed crisps are a spin on Korean gimbugak: nori is battered with rice flour then fried to make “crackling”.
Chef Bente Grysbaek celebrates her Danish heritage with the smorrebrod open…
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