MoVida Aqui Melbourne review

August 25, 2023
11:47 pm

Thirteen years after opening, owners Frank Camorra and Andy McMahon have packed up their light installation and brought in the designers to their Bourke Street restaurant.

15/20

Spanish$$

The milk crate cemented itself as a quintessential Melbourne design motif via the usual route: the street, then cafes, galleries and an artist-driven copyright squabble, naturally dubbed #crategate. But I reckon it reached its zenith in 2010 when MoVida Aqui debuted its bar overhung with a colourful matrix of the plastic fantastic. A nod to the all-conquering MoVida original, which is still operating at its gritty Hosier Lane location, it delivered a liberal dose of hipster irony as Australia’s most acclaimed tapas bar made a successful tilt at going the full Iberian restaurant.

It also brought some much-needed edge to the city’s staid legal district (this was pre-Lawyer X, please note), but even milk crates have a best-before date. Thirteen years later, owners Frank Camorra and Andy McMahon packed up their light installation and brought in the designers.

Spanner crab crumpet.Bonnie Savage

The two-month overhaul would have cost a bomb. First impressions? Lots of maroon. There are chequerboard tiles where once there was polished concrete. There are elegantly curving banquettes upholstered in fuzzy, seafoam-green fabric and bottle-green leather chairs. By night, it’s dim. Is that the bar over there through the gloom?

Older and sterner, Aqui has shucked off its identity as an Andalusian workers’ cantina on a Melbourne holiday to assume the mantle of a mature restaurant. If it strays a little into the sterile territory of a hotel lobby in the latter stages of the Franco regime, some time and scuff ought to bring it nicely to heel.

The food needs no such caveat. The rebooted Aqui menu still finishes on the triumphant note of rice dishes that the original Hosier Lane kitchen isn’t big enough to support (the Josper-cooked paella with quail and artichoke hearts, $60, delivers the mandate of a chewy crust and rice that rocks each discernible grain), as well as the tapas dishes that put it on the map. You’ll still get the anchoa ($6.50), the holy trinity of anchovy, smoked tomato sorbet and crouton that probably pays the MoVida group’s rent unassisted, and the Aqui stalwarts, such as the calamari bocadillo ($9.50), stuffed in a floury roll, that has the flavour zip of sweetish Basque guindilla peppers. And are you jonesing for the legendarily luscious combo of Pedro Ximenez-braised beef cheeks on cauliflower puree ($38)? Yep, that’s here, too.

Paprika lamb skewer with a salsa verde of green olives, parsley and garlic.Bonnie Savage

But go forth, MoVida fans, and explore the new dishes that prove Aqui 2.0 isn’t just a matter of window-dressing. The cliche-free nature of Camorra’s tapas sensibilities is front and centre in the cangrejo ($11). The scaled-down Dr Marty’s crumpet, topped with spanner crab and finger lime in a tangy blanket of saffron mayo, is like breakfast and dinner fell in love and made the perfect party canape. “Vintage” beef tartare ($9.50) makes a big-flavoured virtue of age and balances it with the tickling sharpness of pickled turnip and horseradish. A Jerusalem artichoke ($8) is salt-baked into crunch, then its guts filled with artichoke cream with fried chickpeas and the complex citrus zing of fried curry leaves. From the Josper, an earthy corn flatbread holds its own against a rugged pork sausage with a slick of braised green peppers ($12), a posh version of a popular northern Spanish street food. And the pincho ($11.50) – a paprika-radiating lamb skewer saddled with a salsa verde of green olives, parsley and garlic – is just straightforwardly delicious.

The drinks list knows how to party alongside the salty snacks. Manzanilla (from $12 to $20 a glass) practically demands to ride shotgun with the anchoa, while the wine collection is a thorough pulse-taking of the Iberian Peninsula (if the taxonomy of Atlantic and Mediterranean drops isn’t the most intuitive, the staff are good tour guides).

Aqui shucks off its identity as an Andalusian workers’ cantina to assume the mantle of a mature restaurant.

Or imbibe your booze obliquely when you hit the raciones (bigger, shareable dishes), thanks to a Barnsley lamb chop ($42). The mighty Yorkshire double-banger chop is roasted in Basque cider with a depth-giving hit of anchovies – a far more rewarding cultural exchange than the Brits on the Costa del Sol.

The MoVida empire has ebbed and flowed (most recently, it’s been goodbye, Lorne, and hello, Auckland) but Aqui is a mainstay. Deservedly. The group-friendly proportions are a drawcard over Hosier Lane, but it’s the sharp food that’s the real pull. Go for the comfort of the familiar or the thrill of the new. Either way, this reboot is making Aqui crate again.