Yiaga has planted itself in Fitzroy Gardens, and it's a beauty.
This week, the doors quietly opened at one of the most hotly anticipated new Melbourne restaurants of the year. In the heart of Fitzroy Gardens on the eastern fringes of the CBD, Yiaga has transformed an abandoned tearoom into a fine diner as beautiful as the gardens that engulf it on all sides, owned and operated by one of the city’s best chefs – Hugh Allen of Vue de monde.
Looking out on the garden’s iconic avenues of mature elms, the pavilion is unrecognisable, clad in an curved wall of terracotta tiles hewn together by textural slatherings of grout. Inside, the earthen hues deepen and intensify, thanks to a continuous, undulating tiled wall composed of 13,000 handcrafted tiles in a rich umber, and ruddy Pilbara red-stone fixtures. The design is thanks to Australian architect John Wardle, who called on Australian materials as much as possible in the painstaking build. Custom details such as glassware by South Australian artist Alexandra Hirst and furniture crafted out of Tasmanian blackwood by woodworker Jon Goulder finish off a dining room rich with detail.
It reflects the debut menu by Allen and Yiaga head chef Michael McAulay, who met while working in the talent incubator that was the kitchens of Noma, Copenhagen. Victorian and Australian ingredients dominate here, too, across the $295 set menu, such as retired dairy cow from legendary farmer David Blackmore and invasive Japanese wakame foraged off the Victorian coast.
Details have been scarce since the development was announced earlier in the year, and the opening just as subtle, with the 44-seat restaurant welcoming its first guests mid week. Bookings are now open for the rest of the year, with January and February seats dropping November 1.
Yiaga sits near the meeting of the main walkways in the western side of Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne; yiaga.au
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