It can be hard work trying to live that Champagne life on a longneck budget, but this Friday Rockpool Bar and Grill are taking your lunch hour and giving it a high-end shine for only medium-sized dollars. The restaurant is setting up shop in their events space in Alfred Place on Fri Jun 22 for lunch, where they will be serving restaurant dishes at pop-up prices.
Entrees will clock in at around $19 for things like freshly shucked oysters with mignonette. On the mains front a $29 Cape Grim scotch fillet with veal jus, porchetta with aged balsamic is a steal, as is the fish with green olive butter. You'll never see sides priced as low as $6 in the actual restaurant so take full advantage here, but above all you need to order the pavlova. The Rockpool pavlova is famous: pillowy soft, light as a cloud, and sporting a tropical explosion of passionfruit, balanced by the richness of cream, and you can have it for only $12 (it's normally $23). We've eaten average toast that costs more than that.
You can just keep on super-sizing the fanciness of your meal with wines by the glass, carafe or bottle. Heck, maybe even consider a second round of dessert.
Rockpool Bar and Grill City Pop-Up. 7 Alfred Place. Fri Jun 22. From noon.
Love a fancy bargain? Try these cheap hacks for Melbourne's fine dining restaurants.