Magic Mountain Saloon
A critic who gave it four stars said the kitchen refuses to soften the chilli for local palates, and meant it as praise.
Why go
An Irish theme pub on Little Collins Street was rebuilt into three levels of eating and drinking, with neon, long marble tables and a DJ on the second-floor mezzanine (Time Out). Karen Batson brought the same fiery approach she cooks at Cookie, which belongs to the same group. The food is modern Thai that argues with itself: chilli and lime popcorn chicken, garlic and chive dumplings, curry-filled arancini, DIY barbecue pork baos and curried soft shell crab out of the wok (Broadsheet). The bar carries taps, a matched wine list, spritzes and cocktails. Red Rock Venues runs it alongside Cookie, The Toff, Ludlow, Temperance and BearBrass, so read the format as a group's rather than a chef's.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Scotch egg, which is minced chicken heavy with kaffir lime sitting in caramel tamarind under a pile of onion rings. The green prawns and cured kingfish with green chilli and garlic. Chilli and lime popcorn chicken. A Bitch Diesel to cool it down.
- Avoid: Sunday and Monday, when the doors are shut. And come with the right expectation, because Dubecki's own line is that it is no haven for Thai purists.
What locals & experts say
- Larissa Dubecki, Time Out Melbourne, four stars (January 2015):
It has the same fiery approach to Thai food courtesy of chef Karen Batson, who doesn't pander to any namby-pamby local palates when firing up the chilli guns.
1 - The same review on the dish that proves it: the raw green prawns and cured kingfish
makes like an atomic bomb (although the promised bitter melon has either gone AWOL or been subsumed into the gloop). You'll be breathing fire and garlic for the rest of the evening but that, in our opinion, is a fair price to pay.
1 - Broadsheet, on how to use it: the mezzanine
is ideal for cocktail parties, with DJs playing multiple times a week
, and the booths at the back are where to go for something quieter.2 - No Melbourne chef names it, across 74 picks by 44 working chefs and writers, and no critic has written about it since 2015.5
Good to know
- Where: 62 Little Collins Street, near the theatre district and Parliament.
- Timing: Tuesday to Saturday, midday until late. Closed Sunday and Monday. Happy hour runs 3pm to 6pm on weekdays.
- Booking: worth making, and essential for the Saturday bottomless lunch, which is $65 a head or $50 without alcohol for ninety minutes of drinks.
- Noise: three levels with a resident DJ. The booths are the quiet option.
- Operator: Red Rock Venues, six Melbourne rooms including Cookie, which shares this kitchen's Thai lineage.
- Diet: no allergen or dietary statement is published, so nothing is flagged.
- Hygiene: Victoria publishes no venue ratings, only Safe Food Victoria's register of convictions under s.53D of the Food Act 1984, and this venue is not on it.6
Verdict
could-visit — An abject Irish theme pub on Little Collins was turned into a three-level Thai eating and drinking house with neon, marble and a DJ on the mezzanine, and Larissa Dubecki gave it four stars in 2015 for a reason worth quoting: chef Karen Batson 'doesn't pander to any namby-pamby local palates when firing up the chilli guns'. The raw green prawns and cured kingfish under a green chilli and garlic dressing, she wrote, 'makes like an atomic bomb'. Batson also cooked the Thai at Cookie, which is the same group. The kitchen is genre-busting rather than orthodox, and Dubecki said so plainly: a Scotch egg of kaffir-lime chicken in caramel tamarind, a lemongrass steak tartare, curry arancini. It still trades Tuesday to Saturday from midday until late and runs a bottomless lunch on Saturdays at sixty-five dollars a head. It sits at could-visit because the only critical verdict on it is eleven years old, no working chef names it, and Red Rock Venues runs six rooms in this city, which puts the burden of proof on the plate.