Untitled, sister restaurant to adjacent cocktail bar Ugly Duckling, is the latest in a slew of restaurants to resuscitate Swan Street’s aspirations to be a dining destination.
Shades of brown, orange and beige lend the multi-level Untitled a distinctly early '70s feel, accentuated by the bright splashes of art, leather swivel stools framing the bar, wooden blinds and textured walls. The current menu on offer is distinctly Italian with some flourishes from around the globe – harissa is present in more than one dish, while the beef tartare, pommes puree, and fennel and potato gratin point to French influences. The snacks come in individual servings, the entrees are designed to be shared, and while you could choose to share a few mains among you, who wants only a spoonful of pasta and the corner of a steak? No, these dishes are best enjoyed solo.
Complimentary bread with smooth and velvety whipped butter kickstarts our meal. The first of two snacks we try, the cacio e pepe croquette is a thick melange of cheesiness spiked with black pepper. Encased in crisp batter, the filling is paste-like. If you’re not the biggest truffle fan, don’t be scared off by the menu’s description of truffle pecorino – the discernible hints of it are negligible.
The rounds of pickled cucumber garnishing the oblongs of potato rösti topped with creamy lobster cuts through the richness of this dish, while the dollops of horseradish and tendrils of pickled onion perform the same function in the beef tartare, which is served the traditional way with a raw egg yolk. Our only complaint about the latter is that the accompanying kettle-style chips aren’t sturdy enough to be successful scooping vessels for the beef tartare.
But where Untitled truly hits it out of the park is with its mains.
Sitting in a buttery reduction, the crab and chilli linguini is enlivened by pops of salmon roe dotting the pasta. It’s simultaneously fresh and indulgent until you find yourself taking increasingly long pauses between bites – it’s a deceptively large plate of pasta. Untitled don’t do dainty servings, so depending on your appetite, maybe we'll take back what we advised regarding sharing mains.
Exemplifying this approach that prioritises quality as much as quantity, the immaculately breaded pork cotoletta comes as two large cutlets. The celeriac remoulade does some heavy lifting to cut through the richness of the incredibly moist pork, particularly when drizzled with the caper and sage butter.
If you’re in the mood for a meaty pasta, the ruffled edges of the cresti de gallo – which translates from Italian to mean ‘rooster’s crest’ – is perfect for catching the savoury nduja ragu, with the walnut pangrattato adding a pleasant textural contrast. Untitled isn’t too fancy to refrain from blanketing the entire bowl in grated parmesan.
The pan-roasted hapuka and 220g Blackmore Wagyu dry-aged full blood bavette – otherwise known as a flap steak – are the two pricier mains on the menu, but they both justify their price tags. The delicacy of the hapuka is complemented by the use of native succulents like samphire, while the thinly sliced bavette sitting in a madeira jus reduction tastes like it barely spent any time on the pan – in the best way possible.
Turns out Untitled isn’t the kind of place where you have to load up on carby sides for your meal to touch the sides of your stomach, but the skin-on fries would be a worthy adjunct to any meal. The vaguely termed charred greens are actually broccolini and green beans, which come served with a mixed dollop of harissa, tahini and za’atar.
There is perhaps no better time for teetotallers as the present and Untitled offers this cohort better options than most – peruse through the cocktails and you’ll find a non-alcoholic equivalent of an Amaretti Sour and the citrus-forward Peachy Keen with the fizz of ginger beer, on top of your regular zero per cent beers and soft drinks.
It’s not unusual for old-timey Italian restaurants in Melbourne to not feature any skin-contact wines, but Untitled pleasingly has four by the bottle.
Untitled’s thoughtful, seasonally rotating menu is matched by a lovely atmosphere and the most attentive, professional service we’ve encountered in a while. Cost of living pressures have elevated restaurants like Untitled – more casual offshoots of the fine dining experience – into destinations that are only thought about in the same breath as special occasions, but whether you have something to celebrate or not, it’s well worth a visit.