High Street is no stranger to well-heeled neighbourhood restaurants. Wine bars Vex, Gray and Gray, and Oh Loretta! are the latest to set up shop on both sides of the hill demarcating Northcote, joining stalwarts like Estelle and Pizza Meine Liebe. Among them, European-inspired polymath Zsa’s – an all-in-one breakfast destination, bar, bistro and deli – has been a quiet achiever, inspiring lunchtime queues after opening in late July 2020.
Exemplifying the playfulness and style of Hungarian-American actress and socialise Zsa Zsa Gábor – after whom it’s named – Zsa’s prides itself on being, in our waitstaff’s words, a place where you can ‘order a martini and oyster at 10am’. And that’s indeed one of Zsa’s main drawcards. It’s open from 10am to 11pm most days of the week with an all-day snack menu drawing on the best of Zsa’s deli – think fresh bread, cheese, terrine, all manner of cured meats, and tinned seafood boasting the likes of Cantabrian smoked anchovies, Galician pickled mussels and Catalonian sardines.
A wine glass-lined bar and open-shelved pantry packed to within an inch of its life with local and imported produce greet you as you enter Zsa’s. Fresh housemade pasta hangs in racks and the forest green walls are adorned with a mishmash of classical European paintings, while the black panelled walls are fitted out with moss green leather banquette seating. The effect is warm, cosy and slightly zany.
The lunch menu of salads, pastas and panini – including Zsa’s crowd-pleasing porchetta panino where pork and crackling is encased in melted scamorza – gradually gives way to a bistro offering that borrows influences from France, Italy and Spain.
Available all day for good reason, the oysters are exceedingly fresh no matter which chime of the clock you time them with. The French onion dip with crispy chicken skin is another highlight – thick and lustrous with thin strands of caramelised onion and a stretchy texture akin to melted cheese off a pizza, the dip is a natural counterpart for the thin sheets of chicken skin, baked so expertly so as to not contain any residual grease. When we inevitably run out of chicken skin as we’re told every dining group does, our waitstaff refills our bowl with ‘chippies for our dippy’, crisps of the salt and vinegar variety. It’s a worthy replacement and almost as good as the chicken skin.
Straight out of Zsa’s deli come Don Bocarte anchovies, served alongside chargrilled wedges of bread. Predictably salty with a lingering sweet aftertaste, the anchovy fillets are best enjoyed heaped on bread and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil from the tin. More subtle than its cousin ceviche, the plump and delicate pieces of sea bream crudo – with crudo simply meaning ‘raw’ in Italian and Spanish – is dressed in Zsa’s house-brewed elderflower vinegar and complemented texturally by a bed of crushed peas.
Some dishes are less successful than others. The steak tartare is overly vinegary with an acidity that’s too overpowering for the accompanying lettuce cups to cut through. The poached cod is expertly cooked, but weighed down by the Greek pureed potato dip of skordalia that accompanies it and a strong herb dressing that overwhelms rather than accentuates.
The absolute must-order dish of the night, though you may never guess, is the asparagus en papillote. The blanched spears are served in the parchment paper they’re baked in, blanketed in a dark orange Hollandaise sauce more burnt butter than egg and topped with bronze fennel breadcrumbs and dill. With notes of caramel and chilli, the sauce elevates the simple earthy vegetable into a rich and heady dish.
Zsa’s dessert menu is brief, unless you count what’s in its display cabinets, and there’s always something good there. When we visit, it’s San Sebastián’s most famed export that has since gone viral, the Basque burnt cheesecake. Zsa’s version was caramelised on the top, and light, creamy and pillowy within, just as it should be.
In a charming flourish, our bill arrives nestled in an old tin of anchovies, sans anchovies and oil. Delineated seating times may stop you from hanging around too long in this post-lockdown world, but Zsa’s is the type of place you could lose hours to. Ensconced from the outside world if you sit in its dining room or the perfect place for people watching if you’re seated on its front deck, its appeal lies in its decidedly European lack of adherence to time – no matter when you visit, there’ll always be a martini waiting for you.