Overview
Just in time for summer, a much-loved Prahran pub has soared back into our lives following a major revamp courtesy of its new owners. It's been a long time between pints, but backstreet gem The Flying Duck Hotel is reopen once more, this time sporting a fresh look, with the crew from Rustica and Hobsons Bay Hotel in the driver's seat.
You'll be happy to know the pub's famed beer garden and atrium have stuck around and are sporting a makeover of their own, ready and raring for those impending summer afternoons. That's complemented by a modern public bar, an open-plan main dining space and a private dining room seating up to 40.
A fitout by local architect practice Fiona Drago has seen the 150-plus-year-old building's internal spaces completely opened up, re-energised with earthy hues, brass accents and a generous splash of olive green.
Head Chef Ben Pigott (Hobsons Bay Hotel, Supernormal, Cumulus Inc) is behind the all-new gastropub offering, featuring brasserie-style fare brought to life via the kitchen's new wood grill. Wood-fired flatbread is matched with black garlic toum and smoked salmon caviar, wood-grilled Shark Bay scallops are elevated with herb butter, and smoky hose-made aioli graces a prawn po boy slider.
You'll find many nods to the classic counter meal in plates like the local fish and chips, a cheeseburger and the dukkah-roasted cauliflower steak with smoked hummus. Deeper in, wood-fired barramundi is paired with warrigal greens and a seaweed butter sauce; a slow-cooked whole lamb shoulder feeds two or three people; and there's a couple of hefty grass-fed options for the steak-lovers.
A stack of weekly specials runs from a weekday happy hour slinging $7 schooners and $8 wines (4–6pm), to Monday's steak night, to half-priced oysters and prosecco bumping up the mood each Thursday.
Find The Flying Duck Hotel at 67 Bendigo Street, Prahran. It's open daily from 12pm–late.
Images: Parker Blain