Who
Melbourne’s favourite wild-wine and fired-food slingers Christian McCabe and Dave Verheul might not be able to welcome us into their bar for some weeks yet, but in the meantime they’re offering the next best thing.

Why
The bread, the bread! Embla’s sourdough has turned many a Melburnian’s frown upside down after a doozy of a day and it’s now available – along with the whipped fennel butter it’s usually served alongside – as an add-on to the weekly-changing menu you’d be bonkers to miss.

Pick-up or delivery?
Pick up or delivery from Embla on Friday and Saturday afternoons.

The lowdown
A new three-course menu is offered every week, often featuring much-loved – and oft-missed – classic dishes that haven’t been seen for yonks, including the famous creamed corn or the classic roasted red cabbage with prunes that gained a cult following at the duo’s previous restaurant, The Town Mouse.

This night it was teamed with Embla’s roasted chicken – the cabbage ready to rock after 20-odd minutes in the oven and the chicken cooked from scratch in the pan and oven. Verheul’s instructions even give some trade secrets away – “Season chicken all over with salt (we probably use more than you in the restaurant, which is partly why it tastes so good)” – along with some clever tricks, such as lightly crushing a clove or two of garlic and adding them to the pan while frying the chicken skin-side down.

The chicken is excellent – crisp and juicy in equal measure – the cabbage as comforting a hug as remembered. A couple of roasted Hasselback potatoes with salsa verde finish the plate.

Beforehand, stracciatella comes ready to “turn onto your favourite small plate. We recommend anything that may look like it was owned by your nanna for this dish.” There’s bitter braised dandelion to spoon on top, along with a sticky-sweet walnut pesto. A slice of focaccia is the crisp scoop/dipper after a minute or two in the toaster.

To finish, a rather fabulous Embla mess of meringue kisses, white chocolate cream and passionfruit posset.

Something to drink?
You can leave it to them and add a bottle for $40 or $85 or, if picking up your dinner, choose your own adventure with 10 per cent off at their new wine store, Puncheon Bottles, next door.

Cost
$45 per person, minimum two pax.

Order up
It’s well worth adding not only that bread to go with, but the cheese course ($20 a serve) if only for the brilliant pickled baby figs, which are served with a hunk of ripe Brillat-Savarin. There’s also a tub of Embla ice-cream that can be added on, with the flavour also changing each week (yoghurt, fig and honeycomb sounds pretty good to us).

Where
122 Russell St, Melbourne, Vic, embla.com.au

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