Anchovy

The first thing that you’ll notice about Anchovy in Richmond is that there’s actually not a whole lot of anchovies on their menu - in fact, I didn't notice one.  Instead it offers a menu of modern Australian/Asian cuisine with offerings such as Vietnamese blood pudding with ginger and herbs, and twice cooked Eugowra quail. 

Being our first time to Anchovy, the three of us couldn't go past the tasting menu. Unfortunately it took an hour for our first dish to arrive, and it was safe to say that having the 8.15pm sitting, we were pretty hungry.  Luckily the beer nuts and the snails were delicious - however the melon was quite tough and lacked any flavour. 

The best dishes of the night were without a doubt the house made roti (one of the best rotis I've had in Melbourne) and the spanner crab. 

The squid and the lamb were also quite tasty - although I would have preferred if the ends of the spring onions were chopped in the squid dish. 

The desert, however, was rather flavourless - tasting somewhat like a snow cone. 

It also wasn’t a good night for service - they were down one staff member so everything was incredibly slow. And I get that sometimes these things can’t be helped, but I feel as though that it’s only fair that if my service goes down 25%, so too should my food bill.

With its slow service, and serving sizes that made us three walk out the door a little hungry, I certainly didn’t love Anchovy. But given that most of the dishes were actually quite tasty - it gets a ‘like’ in my eyes.

Food: 3/5

Venue: 3/5

Service: 2.5/5

Total: 8.5/15

Verdict: Like - get around to trying it at some point