Page 16 - foodservice magazine June 2019

16
DINING
Café on Spencer Street, where his dad Harry regularly took him for cheeseburgers and Dim Sims – both served at Butchers Diner today.
“Those sorts of businesses – I have a soft spot for them,” says Christopoulos. “The synergy, and the energy, and the kookiness of it all.”
You can find a meal to suit every hour of the day at Butchers Diner. Chirstopoulos recommends truffled scrambled eggs for breakfast, the falafel salad for lunch, and grilled pork neck and shoulder skewers with raw onion, parsley, lemon juice and olive oil at dinner.
Elsewhere on the menu you’ll find a Creole salmon cutlet next to a Reuben sandwich or a simple wedge of chargrilled broccoli – all developed by executive chef and co-owner Steve Lichter (also the late night chef at the Supper Club next door). Lichter’s burgers in particular have developed a cult following.
“People always go on about how good the burgers are but there’s only three ingredients in them,” says Lichter. “Two types of beef, salt and pepper. The reason they’re so good is because [Poole] minces them ... and then we’re serving them within 24 to 48 hours, rather than buying in mince that’s been sitting in a bag for who knows how long.”
In fact very little arrives at the restaurant pre-cut. Whole animals are delivered at 4am every day, which Poole breaks down into cuts that then rest in Butchers Diner’s dry ageing display for up to three months. Beef, pork and wild-shot venison from the Yarra Valley all get the aging treatment.