La Belle Miette
30 Hardware Lane
Melbourne Vic 3000

The premier macaron patisserie in Melbourne is without doubt  La Belle Miette. They have managed to create these beautifully delicate and delicious macarons.

They’re not the biggest macarons you’ll find, but they make up for it in flavour and texture. How you create something with a perfectly crispy shell and soft centre, I don’t know, but they’ve done it. On top of that, they such a great array of flavours. I tend to stick to the classics – Vanilla (AHHHMAAAZING!), Salted Caramel, Chocolate and Hazelnut, but they have a huge selection of frutier flavours and of course a few creative ones like Scone with Jam and Cream, and Cherry Blossom and Sake.

If you’re in the area and in need of a small sweet hit, visit their pretty little store on Hardware Lane.

8/10

The Grain Store

517 Flinders Lane

Melbourne Vic 3000

Wow, wow and wow!

The Grain Store has been on my hit list for ages, but I tend to avoid the CBD during the week because it’s busy and hard to find parking unless I want to pay a small fortune. Having said that, the Grain Store is well worth the trip into the city on any day of week.

Best known for its breakfast and lunch offerings, they more recently extend their hours to now include dinner from Wednesday to Saturday. We decided to give their dinner a crack and it didn’t disappoint.

We started with the most delicious Octopus (Octopus,  calabrese  peppers,  saffron  potatoes,  chorizo  aioli,  smoked  paprika  chimichurri) and Veal (Poached  veal  fillet,  avocado,  tuna  mayonnaise,  charred  shallots,  white  anchovies,  caper  berries) dishes. Both incredibly tender and cooked to perfection. They were just the perfect mix of flavours and texture. I just wanted to eat more and more of it, and I was a little bit disappointed when we finished them. If we didn’t have mains on the way we would have ordered another round.

For our mains, we ordered the lamb loin (Spear  Creek  Dorper  lamb  loin,  savory  spring  vegetables,  pearl  cous  cous,  smoked  yoghurt) and duck (Free  range  Aylesbury  duck  breast,  fennel  remoulade,  potato  risotto,  caramelised  carrot,  tomato,  pine  nut) and again we were blown away. That lamb loin – OH EM GEE! Marinated perfectly, it was so tender and left this amazing smokey after taste. Mixed with the pearly cous cous, it was just about the perfect dish.

The duck was just as good, so tender it literally melted in my mouth. That risotto and carrot were just the perfect accompaniment, they really brought out the flavour of the duck in a way I never expected them to. In my experience, duck can sometimes be a bit hit and miss, but the Grain Store have perfected it.

It also has to be said that each dish is just the perfect size, not to big, not to small, just right.

Oh and a big thumbs up to all of the service team, they were all so friendly and did a great job to make us feel very welcome.

I really really liked the Grain Store and I can’t wait to visit again.

9/10 (yep that good!)