As George Colambaris would say…I LOVE IT!
My brother and sister in law were visiting from Adelaide and each time they are here in Melbourne we make sure we visit celebrity chef restaurants. On their recent visit to Melbourne we went to George Colambaris’s Hellenic Republic in Brunswick.
The restaurant has a quintessential Melbournian vibe, serving authentic Greek food with a contemporary twist. There are plenty of meat and vegetarians options, but personally the seafood dishes were our favourite.
The food is reasonably priced and the serving size is pretty generous too, which is always a plus.
We ordered a range of mezze and salads, which were all delicious. The boys ordered an assortment of meat dishes of which the charcoal chicken was a clear favourite. My personal favourite of the night was tiger prawns with ouzo salt, just delicious! Soft juicy grilled prawn and the tangy ouzo salt gave it the perfect kick.
We finished the meal with some light but tasty dessert. Risogalo (rice pudding) was a clear winner of the dessert round!
The wine list was exhaustive and had a lot of delicious wines from Greece and others from the Australian wine regions. Definitely a plus if you love to match your food with wine!
The customer service was slightly lacking in its finery, but the delicious food made up for it. Perhaps George needs to make a visit to the floor and pass on his contagious enthusiasm and passion for food to his floor staff.
With everything said all in all a great food experience and LSD definitely recommends this restaurant to all.
Overall rating – 8/10
Price – $$$
