Greenhouse by Joost
website  
Queensbridge Square
Southbank VIC 3006
$$$

It's the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival! Seeing as I'm usually late to the party, I haven't exactly been checking out the scenes but I did at least visit Greenhouse by Joost. Last year I meant to go to the one in Sydney as a post-exams celebratory thing but I think it was a 3-hour queue to get in. I ended up in Peter Doyle at Quay instead that night. So when news came by that the Greenhouse was coming to Melbourne for the MFWF ... I was there!

I don't really think I need to go into the concept of what GbJ is about. The key words are ecosystem, waste, friendly, sustainable, locally-produced, locally-harvested, organic - you get the drift. The concept surely isn't new, but perhaps GbJ has garnered more publicity. On the evening I was there, the table next to us was filled with eager-looking foodies with their pens and notepads out. Like serious, hardcore eaters.

And of course, who was to drop by but Joost Bakker himself.

To be honest I wasn't exactly wowed by anything here. The food was very average. There wasn't much of an ambience. Perhaps the one in Sydney is rockin' but you know, they've got Circular Quay and we've only got the Yarra River. It's very pretty by night but I suspect I'll still sleep quite well at night if I haven't brought any of my visiting friends to the Greenhouse.