Andrew McConnell’s genre-defining dining room comes of age, and is as buzzy as ever

During the reporting for The Age’s recent series on Melbourne’s restaurant tycoons, writer Rachael Ward called me to ask, among other things, what ingredients were responsible for the wild success of chef and restaurateur Andrew McConnell.

Of course talent is at play, but many talented chefs don’t find the kind of longevity, relevance and prosperity that McConnell and his Trader House group enjoy. I have no insider knowledge of the workings of Trader House or McConnell’s operating methods, but I suspect I was right when I told Ward that part of McConnell’s success stems from his ability to recognise, promote and retain talent. So many chefs make a name for themselves, expand too quickly, and spread themselves too thin while simultaneously claiming too much credit. McConnell appears to focus on mentorship, holding on to the best talent he has by offering them enough autonomy to prove themselves within the group.

At Cumulus Inc., McConnell’s 18-year-old Flinders Lane stalwart, that certainly seems to be the case with the promotion of Hannah Holleran to the position of head chef. Originally from London, Holleran has spent the past five years at Gimlet, beginning as chef de partie and working her way up to senior sous chef. At Cumulus, she takes on the task of retaining and perhaps reinvigorating the relevance of one of Melbourne’s most iconic dining rooms.

That room still feels as buzzy as ever, its high-ceilinged, block-coloured industrial design full of confident energy beginning at noon daily and lasting through the afternoon and into the evening.

Weekends feel frenetic; I’m personally a fan of the 3pm lunch or Monday night dinner, when the groove is slightly more relaxed, perfect for luxuriating over an impossibly cold and silky martini at the counter facing the kitchen, or at one of the banquet tables along the wall.

The wine list here remains one of the best in the city, with many ways to approach it – I particularly appreciate the seasonal selections offered in a multitude of serving sizes, from half-glass to carafe.

The menu format is familiar. Snacks, entrees, sharable mains and sides, and nothing looks particularly inventive or singular until the food hits the table. The city is full of tuna tartare – but very few are this fresh, this focused on the purity of the ingredients. The tuna is served in hefty cubes over goat’s curd and vibrant green peas spiked with mint, each element playing off the other just enough to complement without overwhelming.

A star-shaped, bite-sized galette gives the mellow vegetal snap of zucchini a funky and lavish underpinning with a filling of custard made from Emmental cheese.

Holleran seems especially talented at introducing unexpected elements to familiar presentations, then making you wonder why those elements aren’t already canon. A recent special of shelled mussels in an escabeche broth with saffron aioli had a kick of honey, but rather than making the dish sweet or cloying, the thing that shone through was the musky essence of honeycomb, heightening immeasurably the pleasure of the saffron and slivers of pickled vegetables.

Tender agnolotti is filled with a beetroot ricotta mixture and garnished with walnuts and sage, and makes for an excellent mid-course before you move on to the big hunks of meat. What’s your pleasure? An O’Connor porterhouse? Half a duck, the confit leg a touch too salty but the breast cooked perfectly, served with persimmon? Or perhaps a massive 1.3-kilogram lamb shoulder, fall-apart tender and smothered in a sauce of almond and red pepper.

Desserts are also excellent – I had a late-season fig dish a few weeks back that was served almost like a juicy, fleshy carpaccio, along with a fig leaf ice-cream, that had me rethinking everything I knew about the nature of figs. It’s since been replaced with a brown sugar custard tart with candied kumquats that manages to be delicate and decadent all at once.

I’m a fan of the 3pm lunch or Monday dinner, when the groove is slightly more relaxed.

One of the ironies of Cumulus is that if you were to look at the menu and space with no context, you might say: yep, here’s another wine-bar-slash-restaurant serving familiar but fun dishes in a stylish industrial space – in other words, a standard Melbourne dinner spot. In fact, that’s what a dining partner who had never eaten there before said when we sat at the counter on a recent evening. “Yeah,” I told him, “except this is the place that invented the genre.”

By the time we left, he was raving: “It makes those other spots look like child’s play.”

It’s a huge credit to McConnell, and to Holleran, that Cumulus can still make an impression that arresting. Not only is it the model from which some of Melbourne’s best restaurants took inspiration, it continues to shine brightly as a standard-bearer of great service, fantastic wine and approachable, exciting and delicious dining.

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