Stop Whining is a stay-a-while oyster bar on Little Bourke Street (and there’s sea urchin ice-cream).
There are many exciting lures that can stop a person as they wander through Melbourne’s Chinatown. During Lunar New Year celebrations, I paused for a huge dragon, spitting lettuce and attended by wranglers with firecrackers. I often find myself drawn down the bluestone lane that contains not just rickety Cantonese cult classic Supper Inn (have the chilli quail) but also microbar One or Two (have a “That’s Quke” cocktail with gin, vermouth and wasabi oil).
Since mid-last-year, I’ve also been halted by a stand-up oyster hit at Muli Express, a hole in the wall where the food chat is as delicious as the freshly shucked snacks. This slurp-and-go experience now has a stay-a-while sibling two doors up, in a shop that used to be a real estate office.
Stop Whining is petite and sweet, with lace curtains, colourful posies, a dining counter in front of the kitchen and high-top tables where you can hang out for a casual seafood feast.
Ordering is via QR code, which can suggest a less interactive meal, but the staff here will happily chat about their products, including the 16 different oysters that can be available at a time. There is fresh-from-the-tank prawn sashimi and sea urchin, while lobster rolls, grilled scallops and steamed mussels are part of the small offering of hot dishes.
If you want something very cold, there are oyster and sea urchin ice-creams, strangely beguiling and definitely worth trying.
The Tran family who own this place also have D&K Live Seafood, a Footscray fish shop that opened two decades ago and is now grandaddy to a suite of businesses that includes quirky Carlton seafood restaurant Muli, little Muli Express in Chinatown and now Stop Whining, which is run by third generation family members Cody Su, Jessie Tran and Sarah Ding.
Jessie’s mum, Van Tran, is responsible for the restaurant name – “the universe gave it to me, and when people laughed, I knew it was right,” she told me. Van also came up with the cheeky monikers given to the various oysters, demystifying a product some people can find intimidating.
“Supercharged” is a creamy, briny rock oyster from Camden Haven estuary in NSW. “Mr Perfect” is a sweeter, delicate Pacific oyster from Boomer Bay in Tasmania. Look out for the Native XL, an indigenous Angasi oyster with meaty minerality. If you’re not sure which you might like, the Shuckmaster’s Tasting Menu is a survey of a half-dozen in-season beauties ($38).
It would be wonderful to sip Yarra Valley riesling or Tassie chardonnay along with these oysters but Stop Whining is waiting for the slow grinding of the liquor licensing wheels. It’s ridiculous that it’s taking so long. Can the powers that be find their rubber stamps, please?
Only the most churlish would complain at a restaurant called Stop Whining but I will express doubts about the way the business stores their oysters: in salt water tanks. They go to a lot of effort to source Mornington Peninsula seawater but this water is sucked in and filtered by the oysters while they live in it, meaning that the unique flavour properties of the various oysters tend to diminish.
Seafood expert John Susman speaks of “merroir” when it comes to oysters: it’s the bivalve equivalent of the terroir we might speak about in relation to wine, with the waters of each estuary or rock reef forming part of each oyster’s character.
Given that oysters can remain out of water, kept cool and damp, and will stay tightly shut, alive and happy for at least a week, I am not sure of the tank theory.
What I am clear about is the passion and joy here, and the endless confidence that seafood is an excuse to gather and feel gratitude. If you’re sitting in front of a tray of oysters, there’s probably very little to whine about.
Three more places for fresh seafood
Walrus Oyster Bar
People always want to know my favourite restaurant. I don’t have one, I tell them, I am always going to the next place. But if I had to choose, it might be this gorgeous, welcoming bar, especially for Friday and Saturday night happy hours – at the sensible time of 10pm – for ice-cold $15 martinis and $3 oysters, shucked to order.
9 Inkerman Street, St Kilda, thewalrusoysterbar.com
Sushi On Little Bourke
The weekday-only offshoot of exquisite two-hat omakase Sushi On in Kew is serving office-friendly sushi and sandos, including for takeaway. The fish on rice is Osaka-style hako sushi, which is shaped in a box and then cut into bite-sized rectangular morsels. There’s also monkfish and chips, and spanner crab stir-fry with udon noodles.
3/500 Bourke Street, Melbourne, instagram.com/sushi.on.littlebourke
Rubira’s
Regulars know to look at the blackboard to see the half dozen seafood specials. There will be the day’s best catch, listed by origin, and maybe something fancy like lobster and prawn linguine. There are old-school classics on the menu, including oysters mornay and prawn cocktail with avocado.
192 Station Street, Port Melbourne, rubiras.com.au
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
