9/10 on the lunch scale. There is no better lunch option (that I have tried) in Melbourne.
I almost don’t want to write a review of Hardware Societe, because I don’t want to make it anymore difficult to get a table there at lunchtime! But, sigh, in the name of Fill My Belly I will add to the avalanche of positive reviews out there on Hardware Societe. Because the place is a truly great find. Stuck up the quiet end of Hardware Lane (where it actually becomes Hardware Street), away from the awkward restaurants touts trying to convince you to come inside their restaurant, sits Hardware Societe (Note: if a restaurant has to encourage you to come inside by placing some poor bastard out the front to pounce on people passing by, it is not worth going to. I don’t like generalisations, but I can assure you, their food will be shit). Hardware Societe has the opposite problem of a lot of places on Hardware lane, in that it has too many people wanting a table. So if you want to eat there and not wait half an hour for a table, arrive at 12 pm. They don't take booking and the place is very small. When we arrived at 12 pm we snagged the last table.
Hardware Societe sadly only does breakfast and lunch. If it branched out for dinner it would do a roaring trade also. Because the food is lovely. It is hands down the best value meal I have had in Melbourne in a long time. Sure, $17 for lunch isn’t cheap, but for the quality of the food, the cute and quirky surrounding and the exceptional service, it is a bargain. The food compares to what you would get in a top end restaurant, but instead of paying $45 a meal, you are paying around $17. It certainly puts into perspective the mark ups that top up restaurants must add to their dishes. I am gushing I know, but this place shows us how lunch could be everyday of the week if other places took a leaf out of Hardware’s book. And what a wonderful world that would be.
The menu changes seasonally, and they also don’t have a website, so it is hard to tell you exactly what my friends and I ate (however, I am still having graphic food flash backs so it shouldn’t be too hard). To try to put their cuisine into words, think lots of cuisines and ingredients combined into a delicate balance of flavours. The menu contains about 10 options for lunch, and they all sounded so delicious that I had a minor panic attack when trying to pick what to order. I ate a pork escalope placed on a generous dollop of garlicy labna, with broad beans, peas and snow pea tendrils ($17). It was a generous serve and the pork was perfectly cooked and went beautifully with the labna. The peas and broad beans had been poached ever so slightly so that they kept their fresh flavour. I ate every last little bit of food on my plate. My friends had the pork belly special, which came with cous cous that had been “sexed” up with date molasses and rose water and tossed with roasted nectarines ($17). The pork belly had the requisite crunchy top and sweet, moist bottom. Other menu items included scallops, roasted lamb and vegetarian options.
The food was so good that you could ignore the various groups of people angling for a table and attempting to poach freshly vacated tables from those who had arrived before them. Because of the flood of people wanting a table, Hardware Societe becomes a bit of a jungle at lunchtime in this respect, but the staff cope well and I actually heard a waitress politely telling two people who had snagged a table that there were others who had been waiting longer.
Hardware also has a range of delicious looking sweet food, like macaroons (which a trusted source tells me are some of the best in Melbourne) and cakes. But sadly, I was down to the last 5 cents in my purse and couldn’t indulge. Oh well, this simply gives me an excuse to return. Although I think I will have to arrive at 11.55am next time ...
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