On the Labour Day long weekend, we spent a morning at Blue Lotus Water Gardens, then headed to Innocent Bystander for lunch. Healesville is a favourite lunch destination of ours (Beechworth Bakery and the wonderful Healesville Hotel), so we thought IB would also be right up there.
Sadly, it was more of a miss than a hit.
Our table
We booked for lunch at 1:30pm, and it was completely packed.
Open kitchen, pity we were too far away to see any action
The menu emphasises tapas and wood-fired pizza. However, we still wound up waiting well over 45 minutes for our food to come out.
Fentiman’s “Biologically Brewed” Cherry Tree Cola, $6.50
Fentiman’s “Biologically Brewed” Ginger Beer $6.50
We also waited a fairly long time for drinks. We were provided with two bottles of room temperature water (just enough for a glass each for 6 people), and flagging down a server for more was pretty futile. I hadn’t heard of Fentiman’s before, and after a couple of hours taking photos in the sun, fizzy drinks sounded like a great idea! The cherry cola was kind of medicinal (like chinotto), and thankfully wasn’t as sweet as other cherry colas. The ginger beer was more like an actual beer in its level of bitterness, but still refreshing.
Sautéed green beans with dragoncello dressing $9
This might have been ordered mostly for the name… I thought it tasted like fennel, but apparently dragoncello is Italian for tarragon.
Can’t find this dish on the menu, but it’s some kind of fritter… (untried)
Lamb and pine nut adana (Turkish meatballs) with tabouleh $12 (untried)
Truffle and parmesan fries $10
The tapas/sides came out first, which would have been okay except that we asked to have everything out at the same time. I quite liked the fries, but the Doctor thought they were too salty. Next time I get some truffle oil, I might try making these myself, but no additional salt.
Caramelised onion, baby spinach, buffalo mozzarella, kalamata olives, fetta and fried almonds $23
That… doesn’t look like spinach. Still tasted good! Dat burnt crust, tho :(
Prosciutto, tomato, parmesan and parsley $24 (untried)
Buffalo mozzarella, tomato, basil and olive oil $20 (untried)
Puttanesca (anchovies, tomato, capers, olives, dill and buffalo mozzarella) $25
The pizzas were a generous “medium”, one could probably feed two people if they weren’t starving like us.
I still don’t know what to think about them. I was pretty hangry, but considering how the menu says it’s all about the base”, a burnt crust is very disappointing. For wood-fired pizza (which usually cooks in >5 minutes), I also thought how long it took them to come out (over 45 minutes!!) was quite poor. But the flavours were great, and I totally copied the puttanesca at home within the week. I was excited to taste San Marzano tomatoes for the first time, and now I’m left with the problem of trying to find them for myself!
The crust didn’t have a discernable sourdough flavour, mostly it tasted of cornmeal. But the un-burnt parts were perfectly crispy and cracker-thin, which shows great technique.
Everything that I’ve complained here about could be due to the staff being run off their feet towards the end of a long, hot day. We’ll probably have to go back again to see if that was actually the case.
| Food |     |
| Really delicious food, emphasising quality and simplicity. Points lost for the menu setting way too high expectations. | |
| Ambience | |
| The warehouse style building amplified all the noise that comes from having a lot of people in one space. This sort of thing bothers me more than most people, though. | |
| Location |  |
| Worth it if you are already around the area (and there is a lot to do out there!). If you plan to go to Healesville specifically for lunch, try getting a booking at the Healesville Hotel first. | |
| Service | |
| Service was painfully slow, given the number of staff around. Hopefully this was just an off day for them. Online booking system is always a plus though. |
