Is there room for another restaurant in Flinders Lane?

Yes, if its name is Oter.

Into this crowded and congested eating out strip comes a new “contemporary French restaurant’’ anchored in European tradition yet defiantly modern.

The word, oter, means “to remove’’ or “take off’’ and paring back is certainly a feature of the minimalist fitout and chef Florent Gerardin’s inventive cooking. Taking off might also describe what this place is doing in a broader sense.

Owners Tom Hunter, Kate and Mykal Bartholemew (of Coda/Tonka fame) and French-born Gerardin have only had the doors open for a month after artfully refitting the basement digs that once housed Japanese eatery Yu-u.

But the word is already out that Gerardin’s food is something to behold. That this cool space is red hot. That this is Melbourne’s best new restaurant.

For proof, you only have to come off the cobblestones, descend a few concrete steps and take a seat at the central bar – the same one that graced Yu-u, now stripped back and fitted with supremely comfortable chairs.

Here – with a front row view of Gerardin’s fiercely focused kitchen crew – there are temptations aplenty.

Gobsmacking cheeses on a block at one end.

Technicolor tarts at the other.

But Oter whets your appetite before you even decide to go a la carte or choose the “menu du chef’’ (five courses $90, eight $130).

Tiny, leafy radishes land, ready for dunking in sea salt.

Then crusty Chez Dre bread which arrives in a proving basket with beautiful butter – cultured and churned in-house using Schulz Dairy cream.

Gerardin insists on it. Just as he insists on super-fresh Clarence River (NSW) prawns ($9), grilled on a yakitori and glazed with pickling juices.

“Nothing goes to waste here,’’ he says.

Its a lesson Gerardin learnt at Joost Bakker’s Silo, and Mark Best’s Pei Modern before that, and expressed in another dish here using fish wing ($21).

The fine flesh chefs winkle out of snapper carcasses is brined, then steamed and lodged under microplaned ribbons of kohlrabi with roasted pumpkin seeds.

Green kohlrabi ‘powder’ – fashioned from the leafage that normally gets binned – is added as a final touch.

Oter’s food is being delivered on lovely Japanese-style ceramics inherited from the previous tenant but Yu-u’s austere aspect has been softened with gold accents, blonde timber and playful murals.

Best of all, they’ve punched in some windows on two sides so you can see foot traffic while you savour smoked eel and nettle soup ($20) or the whitebait waffle ($12).

Yes, you read that correctly.

Oter’s kitchen is sending out Port Phillip whitebait in a warm potato roesti waffle whose “deliciousness’’ – Gerardin’s favourite word – is only exceeded by a petite starter he calls ‘truffles and offals’ ($14).

Put simply: a slow-cooked egg is set inside a jam jar, the yolk quivering under a foamy blitz of chicken hearts and chicken liver.

That bald description doesn’t begin to convey its heady truffle scent or savoury loveliness.

The cellar at Oter brims with French wines, plus a few select Australian labels.

A chardonnay from the Jura, in alpine France, carried us across much of the menu but something bigger – and Burgundian – is called for if you order the tete de veau ($30).

We’re talking veal head here.

The brains, neck, tongue, cheeks and sweetbreads of a calf, all pressed into a brick of marbled meat.

Its a French bistro classic rarely attempted in Melbourne and Gerardin’s rustic version comes with a piercing sauce gribiche to cut through the gaminess.

Gerardin – who honed his craft in Joel Robuchon’s French kitchens before settling in Australia – is always looking for ways to simplify and with another bistro classic, boudin (black pudding) ($31), his purity is almost monastic.

No seasoning, no spices.

Just lots of piggy goodness with caramelised onion puree and a couple of glazed beets.

Perfectly presented cheeses (Roquefort, Holy Goat washed rind among) beckon ($23), with honeycomb on the side, but a meal at Oter is incomplete until you’ve tasted the ‘tartes du jour’ ($16).

Think Valrhona chocolate, lemon curd, cinnamon, and quince … all fenced in with brittle, blade thin pastry.

Oter’s service, while upright and engaging, is still a little soft.

It will take time to achieve the seamless transitions that longer established places can rely on. Hunter is already moving to make the menu more navigable.

In every other way, Oter is a revelation.

A dining room of distinction where the chef is not striving to evoke memories or transform ingredients but just to be himself.

Deliciousness indeed.

Originally published on news.com.au