Metropolitan Hotel

36-42 Courtney St (Cnr Blackwood St)
North Melbourne
http://www.metrohotel.com.au

Have you ever had one of those moments, walking into a restaurant or hotel you’ve never been to before and felt like yelling out ‘Darling, I’m home!’ as you toss an imaginary brown leather satchel into the corner and recline onto a leather chaise lounge and tilt your hat over your eyes?

Well that’s how I felt when I walked into the Metropolitan Hotel for lunch the other day. Fan-friggin-tastic. Want to come in and take a look?

What can I say? Old stain glass windows. Traditional wooden bar. Beer. And what beer! Taps and taps of it. An old dining room, reminiscent of my Mum’s dining room, with old furniture, white table clothes and playing Nat King Cole over the audio system as we were seated.

But the pièce de résistance? What the restaurant specialises in. You know I am going to hell for this, and the planet getting burned to a cinder by our profligate farming practices, but I don’t care if this is what it means. You got it. Steaks!

Oh gosh, just even writing these words makes me come over all gushy and want to skive of down the pub… again.

OK, now I’d better just lower your expectations a little. It’s not perfect. The staff say things like ‘Have youse decided what to order yet?’ The antique chairs in the dining room are beginning to go in the bum a bit (like us all), and the tables are a little rocky. The floor creaks and there are fat blokes sitting around in suits.

But this place is about nostalgia. Pub nostalgia for an era that may never have existed but is even more glorious for that. You know, that kind of yellow light memory you have while you’re experiencing something? Golden and glowing and pure, because you realise you’re witnessing the end of days of something; a perfect pearl sitting in a glass of vinegar that Cleopatra holds while licking her lips. Something pure and refined, but kind of sad too. With beer on tap.

I’ve noticed recently that North Melbourne has a treasure trove of gourmet pubs. There’s the Royal Park hotel about two blocks from the Metropolitan (OK, a bit uni style, with hand crotched art on the walls and used brown couches – but carpet bagger steaks! – like the seventies never ended!), and I suspect dozens more venues hiding around the back streets. This may in fact be one of my new ventures, to go out and seek every back street North Melbourne gastro pub scenario. And then maybe I’ll turn my sites on Seddon.

I had the aged poterhouse with red wine jus and side orders of rosemary potatoes and a green salad, washed down with a very serviceable Heathcote Shiraz. There were five of us (rather than the four in my previous entry), we drank more, and it still came out to cost less than Shakahari… and animals gave their lives for our meals! (Bless them, they did not die in vain).

So obviously, you know I liked it. Stuff it, I loved it. Give me more please. This isn’t fine dining. Not in the strict sense. There are no velvet gloves emptying your pockets, and it’s a bit too earthy to be posh. But it’s my style. I guess I must be a fat gutted, middle aged bloke (on the inside, bursting to get out through the veneer of urbane and svelt intelligentsia) who really likes drinking beer, red wine and eating steaks in convivial surrounds. The verdict? A strong six and a half tentacles out of eight. Forza!