Cutler & Co
The bar takes walk-ins, and Time Out's own reviewer tells you to skip the set menu for a few a la carte dishes.
Why go
Andrew McConnell opened this on Gertrude Street in 2009 and the dry-aged rib eye has been on the menu since then (Time Out). The room has loosened since, and Lauren Dinse's 2025 review says so: the formality has relaxed in line with current dining trends
while the service and the cooking have not. She names wood-grilled Corner Inlet calamari with green romesco and aioli, abalone katsu sando bites, and a duck pithivier with prosciutto she rated one of the best dishes of 2024. Reservations run through SevenRooms and the bar takes walk-ins (Cutler & Co). It is a Trader House restaurant, so the same group runs Gimlet, Supernormal and Marion.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the sage and anchovy fritters to start, which the reviewer calls non-negotiable. The dry-aged rib eye. The wood-grilled calamari. Sunday lunch, taken slowly.
- Avoid: Monday and Tuesday, when it is shut, and the set menu, which the critic herself steers you away from.
What locals & experts say
- Lauren Dinse, Time Out Melbourne (June 2025), on where to send someone for a date or a return visit:
Cutler gets our pick as the cream of Melbourne's crop.
She also calls the Sunday servicethe best long Sunday lunch in Melbourne
and points out that a waiter will open the door, take your coat and check in through the meal.2 - Time Out Melbourne Food Awards: Best Fine Diner, 2017.2
- No Melbourne chef names it. Across 44 voters and 74 picks in Broadsheet's Where Chefs Eat series, and the full series index of 89 articles, Cutler & Co appears nowhere. Andrew McConnell is one of the most-quoted voters in that corpus and he sends people to Flower Drum, Caretaker's Cottage and Tipo 00.3
- McConnell cannot speak for it here. He is on the roster of Melbourne chefs, which makes him a primary about his own venues only. His name is the reason this page sat high on nothing, and it is not evidence.
Good to know
- Where: 55-57 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy.
- Timing: Wednesday to Saturday from 5.30pm, Sunday from midday until late. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
- Booking: essential for a table, through SevenRooms. The bar takes walk-ins.
- Sites: one premises, but one of several Trader House rooms. Gimlet, Supernormal and Marion are separate entries and share no evidence with this one.
- Hats: open search points to two hats in the 2026 Age Good Food Guide. That could not be confirmed at goodfood.com.au, which returns its section front on every path our crawler tried, so no award row is written for it.
- Diet: no dietary or allergen statement is published, so nothing is flagged.
- Food safety: Victoria publishes no venue hygiene ratings. Safe Food Victoria's section 53D register of convictions, as at 21 July 2026, carries fifteen entries and this venue is not one of them.4
Verdict
should-visit — The bar takes walk-ins, which is the part of a $$$$ restaurant worth knowing. Lauren Dinse's Time Out review says you can 'shirk an exxy set menu in favour of a few a la carte dishes instead', calls the Sunday service the best long lunch in the city, and finishes with 'Cutler gets our pick as the cream of Melbourne's crop'. Andrew McConnell opened it on Gertrude Street in 2009 and the dry-aged rib eye has been on the menu since then; the sage and anchovy fritters are the opener. Time Out gave it Best Fine Diner in 2017. Two things hold it off the top rung. It is a Trader House room, one of a group that also runs Gimlet, Supernormal and Marion, so the operator is running a portfolio as well as a kitchen. And across 44 working Melbourne chefs and 74 recorded picks, not one of them names it, which for a room this decorated is worth stating rather than glossing. Go for the Sunday lunch or sit at the bar.