Featuring: Scott Pickett’s Lupo, Pope Joan, Anthony Femia…

A CHEESEMONGER sets up his bricks-and-mortar shop after operating out of a cheese stall, a popular pop-up turns into a permanent home and a chef turns to one of his favourite cuisines to open a new restaurant. Settling down and settling in, Melbourne sure stays interesting.
Chef and restaurateur Scott Pickett’s Smith Street restaurant site has reopened as Lupo, a contemporary Italian offering reflecting its Melbourne location.
The change-over from acclaimed fine dining restaurant Saint Crispin to an Italian-inspired venue has been a long-held dream of Pickett.
Pickett has extensive training in pasta making from his years in London and Italian food is something he has a great love of. The menu at Lupo will be a collaboration between Pickett, his executive chef Stuart McVeigh and Lupo’s head chef Charlie Watson who comes from good stints at Eleven Madison Park and Elystan Street before returning to Melbourne.
With its core founded in good pasta – made in-house daily – diners will be offered a menu of modern Italian dishes peppered with Australian native ingredients such as spanner crab lasagne, basil and Sunrise lime alongside, hare cappelletti with celeriac and mustard fruits and squid ink linguine, bottarga, sardine vinaigrette. Main courses include Spanish mackerel with smoked eel, cannellini bean and cimi de rape or quail with golden raisin, fregola and aged balsamic.
A wine list by sommelier Tristan Vinson highlights small-batch producers, predominantly using Australian-produced Italian varietals. The list offers up to 20 regularly-changing wines by the glass, as well as half-bottle options. The cocktail list includes a barrel-aged Negroni made with Australian Campari.
The interior has been revamped with an understated palette of warm, neutral tones and textural timber elevated by bursts of Aperol orange and anchored by hints of forest green. 300 Smith St, Collingwood; phone (03) 9419 2202.
Melbourne cheesemonger Anthony Femia is swapping his cheese stall in the middle of the Prahran Market – in Melbourne’s inner-south-east – for a brand new store, also at the market.
The 50-seater venue will be licensed, so you can pick from a range of local and international varietals. And there will be a walk-in cheese maturation room containing imported cheeses and exclusive cheese releases from Victorian micro-fromageries.
Femia, who studied cheese maturation at Neal’s Yard Dairy in London, the Cellars at Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont and with “cheese whisperer” Ivan Larcher in France, will also have a purpose-built maturation room, enabling him to age cheese on site. His signature cheese stall “grillz” such as the American-style grilled-cheese toasties has made the move to the new store to be part of an extended menu that includes a weekly bruschetta and a Cubano sandwich with roast pork shoulder from Gary’s Quality Meats – a high-end butcher, also at the market – and there’s fondue, of course.

The space is designed by woodwork artisans Arteveneta to give depth to the experience and the cheesemaking process. Touches such as raw woods, brass, steel and marble feature throughout. Stall 25, Prahran Market, 163 – 165 Commercial Rd, South Yarra; phone 0413 900 490.
After a popular summer pop-up, beloved eatery Pope Joan – that operated on Nicholson St, Brunswick, until it was closed down for redevelopment – has made a permanent home in the Melbourne CBD at 45 Collins St, Melbourne.
The pop-up was a huge success, seeing customers – old and new – finding the city diner at the ground-level of the Sofitel Hotel and enjoying favourites such as sandwiches – The Cornish (Milawa free range chicken and jalapeno roll), The Pope Joan (free range bacon and egg roll, brown sauce), The Turkish Delight (harissa carrot, hummus and grains) and The Reuben (Warialda Belted Galloway beef pastrami, smoked mozzarella and red kraut). These all remain on the menu alongside breakfasts of rice pudding, granola and baked beans on sourdough, with the lunch and dinner menu featuring whipped cheese curds, pickled kohlrabi, grilled bread, cuttlefish cooked over coals and gnocchi with parsnips, Jerusalem artichoke and Taleggio cheese.
And if you’re after a drink and snack after work, there’s a bar menu with corn, cheddar and jalapeno croquettes, wild greens and ricotta toast, sardine and pickled shallot on toast among other dishes.
“I am insanely excited. It’s a dream come true to re-open Pope Joan, I’ve missed her,” says chef Matt Wilkinson. “I’ve been really overwhelmed by the response from the public, and I’m so stoked that we can keep the doors open permanently.”
It’s safe to say that between the original PJ and the pop-up, the menu has featured a huge variety of crowd favourites, and the new offering will be no different. Pope Joan is open all-day for breakfast, lunch, snacks, drinks and dinner, Monday to Friday from 7am until 9pm at 6/45 Collins St, Melbourne; phone (03) 9654 8545.