GG Fine Dining in East Melbourne
GG is an elegant restaurant in East Melbourne that appeals with excellent honest cuisine, engaging service and a cool ambience. Lenny Kravitz tiles from New York grace the bar for goodness sake.
The owners and staff at GG (name is a reference to a family member of the owner as well as a reference to the MCG nearby) are vastly experienced and bring a customer pleasing and top notch dining experience. Premium dining experiences in East Melbourne are in demand as the East Melbourne "set" includes wealthy apartment dwellers, top surgeons and doctors and other medical staff. Many well heeled business types reside in the area - it demands a certain level of culinary excellence and GG delivers. The World Loves Melbourne attended a media launch of GG.
GG serves up superb salads as above. Fresh and tasty. I particularly enjoyed the Tomatoes with basil, buffalo mozzarella, and balsamic.
Check out the tiles sourced from Lenny Kravitz company in New York (below).
A favourite dish was Grilled haloumi courgette pickle.
GG serves up honest and attractive mains such as this Pan seared Tasmanian salmon fennel puree, caramelised fennel, and bisque sauce. The fish was cooked to perfection and accompaniments superb. This is honest food and I appreciate where GG is coming from. To me it's customer focussed, not trying to overwork things.
Another highlight at GG was the Lamb neck, shallot puree, black garlic - melt in your mouth slow cooked lamb.
GG boasts a rotisserie and we were served up plates of lamb and chicken. This is a great concept - and the meat was full of flavour. Just a squeeze of lemon to enhance.
GG pleases with its duck fat potatoes to go with the meat. I'm a big fan of duck fat potatoes...
GG's sommelier Luca has crafted the wine list, offering a bold range of diverse wines, including familiar and unique varietals from Australian and international wineries.
Chef Paul spoke about the philosophy of GG cuisine being fine food that is honest (not too many foams and gels). He was instrumental in the early days of St Katherine's in Kew.
Check out this dessert platter with Berry soup elder flower foam, and sesame biscuit, Cornetto blood orange curd, and pine nuts, as well as Crema catalana and Lemon cake thyme meringue.
GG is a brilliant place to come before a football name at the MCG, or for a function, as well as day to day dining. Highly recommended.