SOS

Yesterday for lunch I was lucky enough to be taken to SOS by some clients. Unfortunately for you I didn’t have my camera with me, thought that would be going too far on a business lunch! For those of you who haven’t heard of SOS it’s the new restaurant run by Paul Mathis, whose previous endeavours include Transport, Upper+Lower House and Soulmama. The menu features seafood that has been sustaibably produced & ethically harvested & seasonal produce, that’s right, no meat in sight. Don’t’ worry the wine isn’t all organic & quite a nice list to choose from.

The location might put you off but don’t let it, it’s on level 3 at Melbourne Central amongst the cinemas & other pretty average looking eating establishments, the whole floor has a bit of a fancy food court feel to it if you ask me. However SOS is neatly hidden away from all of this, in fact we walked right past the entrance & had to go back & search it out. It is a concealed door in a wall of dark brown panelling which when you stand in the right place magically opens & lets you into the oasis within. You then walk down a long dark, lowly lit hallway before you are led into the restaurant itself. The interior was quite funky & modern with some nice music streaming through the speakers. We chose to sit out on the balcony as it was a lovely sunny Melbourne Winters day & the balcony was heated & well protected from the wind. Its always great when the weather starts to cheer up & you can finally do the el fresco dining thing again, makes me believe that Summer might actually return one of these days after all.

The service was very attentive throughout with our waiter being very helpful & the sommelier even paying us a visit A great choice of bread was offered first, wholegrain, sourdough & corn bread from what I remember, I had the wholegrain which was superb, very fresh & we were regularly asked if we wanted more, that’s always a good sign for me, hate stingy bread givers! Next we had a complimentary taster of salmon tartare. After this we hopped straight to the main course, being 3 girls we thought we would forego entrees in favour of leaving room for dessert. I went with the special of the day which was Paradise Prawns (from new Caledonia) with homemade wholemeal tagliatelle & broccoli, think the sauce was some sort of foam concoction, frankly I can never remember the lengthy descriptions the waiters give you, regardless the dish tasted fantastic, the prawns were very good, pretty big & lots of them too, the pasta was oh so fresh & perfectly cooked, the wholemeal lending a lovely flavour too & of course nothing beats home made for flavour & texture. A nice size serve but luckily still some room for dessert which was absolutely luscious, I had the Zucotto Servito con sorbetto al cioccolato e salsa al vin Santo - Traditional Italian style zucotto served with chocolate sorbet & vin santo sauce. In English this is a trifley type dish though of course as you would expect here it was perfectly presented & exquisite, I’m still dreaming about it & wishing for more today.

All in all I really loved this place, there were heaps of dishes on the menu I would love to try & I do like the concept of where it is all coming from too. Will be back for more soon

SOS
Level 3, Melbourne Central
La Trobe street, Melbourne

9654 0808