The D&K Live Seafood Family Wanted Customers To Stop Whining – So They Opened a Bar

In hospitality, there’s power in doing one thing exceptionally well. The family behind Footscray’s D&K Live Seafood is a prime example. Their Hot-Listed Carlton restaurant Muli is laser-focused on seafood (even serving oyster ice-cream). And their Chinatown oyster bar, Muli Express, pares things back to the bare essentials – live oysters served in seawater, without even a rinse, to preserve their unadulterated flavour. At Muli Express, there’s no alcohol, no seating, no extensive menu and customers can’t get enough.

But not everyone wants to slurp standing up. So when regulars began asking for a seat or a glass of champagne, the team responded with a new project two shopfronts down, Stop Whining.

“We were like ‘Hey guys, stop whining. We’ll get that all done for you’,” says Cody Su, general manager and son-in-law of owner Van Tran.

Stop Whining offers the same oysters as Muli Express – around 16 varieties sourced from across Australia. “Every morning we scoot them over [from Muli Express], put them on ice and at night-time, the oysters need a little drink of water, so we chuck them back in the tanks,” Su says.

While Muli Express is just oysters, Stop Whining has a larger menu including steamed mussels, tuna tartare with avocado and a lobster roll that’s been through at least five iterations since the venue opened. It’s been refined by Jessie Tran, Van’s daughter and Su’s wife, who has worked in the kitchen at Muli. With lobster mayo, a heavy hit of herbs and a generous meat-to-bun ratio – the family thinks they’ve finally nailed it.

Other live seafood – including prawns, scallops and sea urchins (also called uni) – appear depending on the season. Right now, there’s long-spine uni with a creamy, rich texture, and short-spine uni, prized for its sweetness. “Some people will ask, ‘Did you put sugar in this? It’s so sweet,’ but it’s natural,” says Su.

Uni also makes its way into dessert, churned into a custard base for a briny, creamy ice-cream topped with flaky sea salt. There’s also an oyster ice-cream made with live oysters and lemon zest – a surprising but balanced scoop.

“We’re not trying to be Michelin-star chefs or use crazy techniques,” Su says. “We stick in our lane and let the product shine.”

The drinks program is as considered as the food. There’s an emphasis on saline-driven white wines like muscadet and chablis (a classic oyster pairing). In the same spirit, there’s an oyster saké from Kazuma brewery, produced with rice grown amongst oyster shells, that Su describes as a new-age chablis.

“The saké producer is a rice field farmer and during his off-season, he’s actually an oyster farmer,” Su says. “He literally just chucks the oyster shells into the rice fields. It’s got the nice mineral characteristic that you want when you pair with oysters.”

The space itself was once a real estate office, now reimagined with tiled walls, tall tables and bar seating that’s sleek yet approachable.

“Oysters are generally more of a fine-dining thing, but we try to make it as unpretentious as possible,” Su says. “We’ve got fun monikers for each oyster, you’ll find a lot of mismatched furniture, some Ikea lighting and [Van’s] little lace curtains. Everything we do, we try to make it welcoming and unintimidating.”

Stop Whining
161 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
No Phone

Hours:
Mon to Thu, Sun 1pm–9.30pm
Fri & Sat 1pm–10pm

stopwhining.au
@stopwhining_bar