Baggage Claim P.
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Claypot Evening Star sits on the corner of South Melbourne Market like it’s physically holding the building up through sheer popularity. On a Saturday night the place is infected, absolutely crawling with people, tourists, locals, and that special breed of diner who enjoys standing in line for half an hour looking like they’re about to be admitted into a secret society.
Let’s get this straight:
I hate crowds.
I hate waiting.
I hate standing around watching other people eat while pretending I’m relaxed.
None of this is the restaurant’s fault, because clearly they’re doing something very right. It is Saturday, after all, a day when people refuse to stay home and eat instant noodles like responsible adults.
The wait is long. You wade through humanity like you’re crossing a river of opinions and linen shirts. But once seated, the bitterness fades, reluctantly.
We ordered an Italian Pinot Grigio, which behaved beautifully and minded its own business. Then came the food: pasta, prawns with coriander sambal, and a full lobster tail that set me back about $100, which hurt, but only briefly, because it was excellent. Everything was properly cooked, confident, and unapologetically delicious.
The mushrooms, cooked in a kind of Asian sambal, were a quiet knockout, deeply flavoured, properly spicy, and far more satisfying than they had any right to be. Earthy and rich, they soaked up the chilli and aromatics beautifully, delivering that slow-building heat that makes you pause mid-sentence and reassess your bravery. It was one of those dishes that sneaks up on you, unassuming at first, then suddenly commanding your full attention, the sort of plate that makes you forget you ordered seafood at all.
The deep-fried flounder was acceptable, which, in this context, is faint praise delivered with a raised eyebrow. Perfectly edible, competently cooked, nicely behaved, but it didn’t exactly leap off the plate and demand a memoir. It did its job, caused no offence, and exited quietly, which is sometimes all a piece of fish can hope for in such distinguished company.
The service is friendly in that Australian way, casual, loose, not taking life too seriously, which is exactly what you want when you’ve just spent half an hour questioning your choices in a queue.
And then there’s the logo, a pair of strange intertwined serpents, which frankly makes the place look less like a restaurant and more like an occult lodge that secretly worships seafood and social endurance. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if the line outside is actually an initiation ritual.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
The wait is awful
The crowd is unbearable
The standing around is humiliating
The food is exceptional
Claypot Evening Star is a victim of its own success.
I hate that I love it.
I’ll complain the entire time.
And I’ll absolutely go back.
Because great food makes fools of us all.
