Albion Street Kitchen

Cheese on toast for dinner? Cannelloni for dessert? No, this isn’t your uni-era flatmate that took up all the fridge room with containers of half-eaten Pad Thai. This is Assiette throwing off its hats and having a little fun.

If the fresh paint job and lower prices don’t appease your nostalgia for the upscale predecessor, the season-driven menu will wipe the words “confit”, “ballotine” and “fois” from your vocabulary.

In their place you’ve got “Pyenga” (the airy cheddar sprinkled with truffle shavings and served on brioche bread), “Jannei” (the goats curd anchoring a cereal-topped beet salad), “bavette” (the miso-glazed Rangers Valley flank steak) and “macaroni terrine”.

The last is exactly what it sounds like — a comfort classic that’s ditched the bacon chunks for Parmesan cream and kale. In the hands of District Dining boys Grant Astle and Warren Turnbull even cheese-heavy stoner foods are transformed into gastronomic marvels. And if you can’t do cannelloni for dessert the honeycomb parfait won’t leave you missing a novelty factor.

At the moment it’s dinner only, but they’ve opened a burger joint (Chur Burger) around the back that won’t stay secret for long. Five burgers for $10 each, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better one this side of Central Station.

Au revior Assiette, hello Albion Street Kitchen.