Its owner wants to make “steak night every night”. What do you get for your money? What else is on the menu? And how is a restaurant competing with pub prices?
Cost-conscious venues are coming to the fore in Melbourne, with another steak frites-championing restaurant opening in the city wearing its price tag loud and proud.
Common Cuts, opposite Old Melbourne Gaol on Russell Street in the CBD, is serving steak and chips for $28.50. It follows 7 Alfred, which opened in October off Little Collins Street with a $48 scotch fillet and fries on its menu – and little else. The intentionally stripped-back offering was to keep choices to a minimum, allowing diners to move through in as little as 30 minutes.
Common Cuts offers more than one dish, but it’s the sub-$30 steak frites that it’s banking on. Diners choose between a 220-gram piece of wagyu flank or a 300-gram Angus rostbiff cooked over charcoal. Fries are included in the $28.50 dish, but sauces cost an additional $4.50.
Chef Reki Rei, also behind Sachi sushi restaurant and katsu specialist Atsu, opened Common Cuts with three other partners and says the venue is his way to make “steak night every night”.
“If you go to Rockpool, you [may not go out] to eat for the next two weeks, for example, because it’s not cheap. And if you go to a pub, it’s almost like a lottery, whether you get good [steak].”
Asked how he’s keeping costs down, Rei lists a few measures. The most obvious are the cuts of beef. Flank is taken from a cow’s abdominal area and is a working muscle. It can be tough if not cooked well. Rostbiff is cut from the rump, toward the cow’s rear. While not as tender as prime cuts like scotch, eye fillet or porterhouse, it has robust flavour.
Common Cut sources its wagyu flank from Black Diamond’s Queensland farms, while the rostbiff comes from O’Connor, a well-known Gippsland producer.
Rei also says he’s buying in bulk where possible, streamlining the kitchen’s butchering and prep, and cooking some steaks using sous-vide and a reverse sear. He and his business partners all work in the business, which can help reduce labour costs.
He also acknowledges the $28.50 price tag is a clever piece of marketing. “We’re opening the door [to the more premium cuts],” he says.
Beyond the two entry-level steak frites, there are seven more options priced between $45 and $185 from various producers. A further three O’Connor steaks, dry-aged for four weeks by supplier Vic’s Meat, go up to $220 for a one-kilogram T-bone.
Sauces go beyond the typical bearnaise or red wine jus. Charred spring onion and malt butter, mustard and horseradish, and chimichurri are among the six choices.
The menu also includes steak tartare made with a mix of Angus rump, rostbiff and tenderloin, plus a decadent wagyu lasagne garnished with bone marrow. A 180-gram cheeseburger on a Martin’s potato roll ($28.50) can be upgraded to a wagyu-on-wagyu blowout ($48.50) where 85 grams of sliced A5 Japanese wagyu are laid on top of the melted cheese.
Don’t want beef? There’s prawn cocktail, Yorkshire puddings topped with whipped goat’s curd and grilled padron peppers, and grilled chicken Maryland with flatbread and charred cos lettuce.
The space includes a large DJ booth in front of a wall displaying vinyl records. Guest DJs and late-night hours are planned, as is a brunch menu from January 19.
Dinner Monday-Saturday. From January 19, also brunch and lunch Saturday-Sunday.
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Emma Breheny – Emma is Good Food’s Melbourne eating out and restaurant editor and editor of The Age Good Food Guide.
