Portsea Hotel: Lamaro’s on the Deck
Disclosure: My guest and I dined courtesy of Portsea Hotel / Lamaro’s on the Deck and Kate & Co.
Wouldn’t it be nice to leave the city behind and head down the coast for summer? Particularly on these hot, hot days?
That’s exactly what the team from Lamaro’s, the restaurant in South Melbourne, did earlier this month. They snuck down the coast and took over the deck at the top of Portsea Hotel.
Down in the small town of Portsea on the southern most tip of the Mornington Peninsula, the Portsea Hotel has accommodation rooms, a bistro, an ala carte restaurant, and (as mentioned above) for the month of January: Lamaro’s on the Deck.
And what a deck it is: covered, but with the ocean side open to the elements, and overlooking the water and the Portsea Pier. My friend Dany accompanied me to lunch, and this was our view – not bad, hey?
Dany started with the polenta crusted zucchini flowers with ashed goats chevre and capsicum coulis ($19).
I declined to have a taste because goats cheese. Dany commented that it was very goaty, and that was a good thing (apparently).
My starter was the Build Your Own Gazpacho.
Actually, it was a gazpacho with grilled king prawns, wild cresses and fennel slaw ($17), which came cutely served in a jar.
Fortunately they also provided a bowl so I pulled everything out and poured the gazpacho over.
I enjoyed the gazpacho. It was very refreshing: the tomato soup had a slight hint of spiciness and garlic, which was nice with the sweet prawns and crunchy slaw and cress.
For mains, Dany was in a particularly carnivorous mood and ordered the 400g grain fed rib eye, which came with a few large cumin spiced onion rings and cafe de paris butter ($46). It looked pretty good.
While I choose the masterstock braised pork hock with apple and peanut slaw and spring onion relish ($34).
The pork hock was delicious, though the skin/outer was quite hard to cut through with my table knife. Once I got through it though, the skin was crunchy and salty, giving way to the braised meat.
I wouldn’t go past the peanut butter and jelly fried ice cream with mixed berry compote ($14) for dessert. Inside the crumb coating was peanut ice cream, laced with jam. So so good. I also really liked the crushed caramel pieces on the plate, though I left behind most of the berry compote because I was too busy concentrating on the ice cream.
Overall, we had a very pleasant lunch on the Deck. It was definitely a very good way to while away a summer’s day.
View Off the spork in a larger map
Lamaro’s on the Deck
Portsea Hotel
3746 Point Nepean Road
Portsea VIC 3944
Web: portseahotel.com.au and lamaros.com.au
Daisy@Nevertoosweet
January 31, 2014 @ 1:39 pm
Love your photos and I’m kinda kicking myself for not ordering the peanut butter fried ice-cream I got the sticky date and chocolate molten cake instead damnnnnn π Love the view there hehe!
Agnes
February 17, 2014 @ 4:58 pm
DAISY HOW COULD YOU NOT ORDER THE PEANUT BUTTER DESSERT.
Rajesh Sharma
January 31, 2014 @ 9:40 pm
What a great and beautiful place to enjoy food in something a different and interesting manner, love this very much
Agnes
February 17, 2014 @ 4:59 pm
It was lovely.
Iron Chef Shellie
February 16, 2014 @ 5:25 pm
That dessert sounds awful.. you should have had two π
Agnes
February 17, 2014 @ 4:59 pm
Haha I should’ve!
melanie
July 5, 2014 @ 8:36 pm
The food is amazing every dish we got was out of this world!! Great atmosphere! Great service! Great place! The only place to come to when in Portsea.. Its a must.. to experience this food… Yummo!!