REVIEWS
The Age Good Food Guide 2012
Melbourne hasn’t seen Chinese done like this before. We’re not only talking about Neil Perry’s dark, moody and seriously sexy clubhouse that looks something like a Shanghai speakeasy, but as Spice Temple shows, Chinese is a cuisine of regions far removed from the sameness of Cantonese…unquestionably the most exciting Chinese in town.
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Australian Gourmet Traveller 2012 Australian Restaurant Guide
The latest instalment in Neil Perry’s gastronomic empire is this version of Spice Temple and it’s hot, hot, hot. Contemporary Chinese food full of exotic spices, plenty of Sichuan pepper and chillies is tempered by aromatic wines from a sharply focused list.
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Larissa Dubecki, The Age , May 2011
15/20. Sometimes restaurants need time to find their feet. Neil Perry’s regional Chinese restaurant at Crown, a Melbourne copy of the successful Sydney original, has been a grower on all of the bases that separate a good restaurant from an average one… At Spice Temple you’ll find brilliantly nuanced food with plenty of originality, backed by Perry’s trademark obsession with great produce.
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Brigitte Hafner, Qantas Australian Way Magazine, March 2011
If you’re looking for some of the best Chinese food in Melbourne in beautiful surrounds, then you can’t really go past Spice Temple. It’s a great place to eat late, not just because of the atmosphere, but because the food is so lively – hot and spicy with the sort of big flavours that are perfect for a late meal, especially when you want to keep the fun coming…
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Michael Harden, Australian Gourmet Traveller, January 2011
There’s a great sense of fun eating at Spice Temple, not least because of the dramatic fit-out with its intermittent pools of dazzling light and impenetrable gloom. The food is similarly dramatic, opting every time for authentic and robust over safe and polite with an admirably high strike rate. Just as with Rockpool Bar & Grill before it, there’s nothing quite like Spice Temple in Melbourne and there’s every chance local diners will clutch it to their hearts just as fervently…
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Stephen Downes, Herald Sun, January 2011
In a lifetime of eating, I’ve never before experienced anything quite like “hot and numbing crispy duck” …a big, roasted, boneless duck breast topped with spring onion slices arrived in a pool of light and very spicy chilli oil spiked with Szechuan peppercorns, chilli flakes, sugar and black vinegar. The duck was cooked through and sliced, its skin delightfully crackly….
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Joanne Hawkins, Sunday Magazine, January 2011
Like its Sydney sister, Neil Perry’s new restaurant at Crown is an exotic and opulent ode to modern Chinese cuisine. Try the lamb and cumin pancakes ($14) or the Kung Pao chicken ($35), complete with Sichuan peppercorns, ‘heaven-facing’ chillies and cashews. Divine.
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Janne Apelgren, Sunday Life, December 2010
Dark. Funky. Spicy. Loud. Neil Perry’s latest restaurant – a Melbourne outpost of his Sydney Spice Temple – is all of the above….it’s probably safe to say Melbourne has never seen a Chinese restaurant like it….
AWARDS
The Age Good Food Guide 2012
Spice Temple Melbourne, 15/20
One Hat
Wine List of the Year
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Australian Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards 2012
One Star