Its been sitting there quietly for about four months, according to our waiter. We are sitting in the former volkswagen garage in the centre of Hobart, now decked out in the ubaindustrial look that is so popular on the mainland.
Concrete floor, open kitchen, huge woodfired pizza oven, and refectory tables that seat about ten. No booking - just turn up, find a seat and meet the neighbours.
We are early and its not busy. Our food starts to come quickly. We open up with three snacks that arrive at the same time "the idea is to share your meal" says our excellent host. Soft boiled quail eggs on aioli, salfish fritters with lemon mayonnaise and fried port stuffed olives with almond and marjoram aioli. Beautiful food served on gorgeous ceramic "slides".
We try a carafe of house red - a pinot from Birchs Bay D'Meure winery, a small (one hectare) vineyard following organic and biodynamic practices. This is an unusual and lovely wine. And what a refeshing change to move away from "by the glass" to something a bit more practical - a half bottle carafe.
Waiting for our mains we find out from our host that the restaurant is owned by the former owners of flirties, another old favourite. Our mains are equally fantastic - grilled lambs tongue, mustard dressing, kale and hazelnut puree; whole jack mackeral, artichokes and stemperata salsa; and steamed vongole with tashiminori rice polenta, parsley adn almond.
"Any deserts?" we shake our head. "Just a heads up then - the goats camembert is just perfect at the moment, couldn't be better". We he has been 10/10 so far, so lets try it. We are not disappointed.
Garagistes - I enjoyed taking my VW there back in the eighties, but I am going to enjoy taking my tummy there even more now. Highly recommended.
