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By: Matt Hurst
Date: 23rd Jul 08
Venue: Restaurant
Meal: All day
What:
Cumulus Inc.
Where:
45 Flinders La, Melbourne
When:
Mon-Fri 7am - 11pm, Sat 9am-11pm
How much:
Kinda pricey but manageable in small doses
It is said that there is a point in anyone's success when your formula is known (1). Seinfeld in season 7, The Simpsons since Homer stole Bart's limelight (2) or Alex Perry having his sunglasses surgically implanted on his head (3).
Chef Andrew McConnell is certainly en route to such success, based on a foundation of undeniably fabulous food served in designed spaces courtesy of wife Pascale Gomes-McNabb (who was clearly christened with profession in mind). Cumulus Inc. is their latest, and devotees and the epicurious have already started congregating en masse, though it's an orderly, intellectual, curatorial masse (4) it must be said (this is the arty end of Flinders Lane after all).
Whether food or alcohol is the fetish, Gomes-McNabb has got your back, as one bar allows drinkers to ogle barmen working with liquor and another sees diners facing the open kitchen, as chefs shuck their oysters and slice their slow cooked pork. No longer a word only for the mouths of Rob Gel and occasionally Mike Larkin, Cumulus may soon well be a part of the vernacular for everyday folk like you and I.
1. James Cameron, breakfast, July 18th 2008
2. ibid
3. You know it's true.
4. Cameron, op. cit.