First Look: New Filipino CBD Restaurant Enelssie Keeps It Traditional

Anthony Herrera has been making traditional Filipino food at his restaurant in Melbourne’s north-west for the past seven years. At Enelssie, “we cook food the way our lolo and lolas [grandparents] do it,” the chef-owner tells Broadsheet.

In recent years, Filipino food has become more prevalent in the CBD thanks to venues such as Askal, where chef John Rivera brings his Australian fine-dining background to the cuisine, and Pecks Road, known for its triple-ube doughnuts and “Filipino banh mi”. With a new Enelssie location just by Southern Cross Station, Herrera adds more traditional Filipino dishes to the mix.

Two Enelssie bestsellers are the bagnet and the chicken inasal. The former is a crispy pork belly dish, the latter sees chicken marinated in a mixture of calamansi, pepper, salt, coconut vinegar and annatto, then grilled. You’ll find other classics including sinigang (a sour tamarind soup) with a choice of pork, shrimp or salmon, and inihaw na pusit (grilled squid stuffed with tomatoes, onion, garlic and ginger, served on a sizzling hotplate). Desserts are classic halo-halo, ube cake and buko pandan, a soupy fruit salad that mixes pandan jelly, shredded coconut and sweetened cream.

Herrera, a former IT professional who grew up in Marikina and moved to Australia in 2013, often went to wet markets as a kid, and learnt to cook by watching his dad prepare food at home. He takes pride in re-creating the familiar flavours of the Philippines in a different country. “Even in Australia, where it’s sometimes hard to source the required produce, we make an effort to find the best possible substitute to mimic the same flavour profiles,” he says. But Herrera isn’t a stickler for tradition.

“We are always looking at innovating. We introduce specials but also keep the classics on deck,” he says. Enelssie’s Burnside Heights location has sold pizzas topped with Filipino ingredients, and when the CBD restaurant opened earlier this year as a takeaway spot, it started by selling lunchtime “Fill-Oh” bowls: rice bowls topped with Filipino pork sausage, lumpia (spring rolls) and adobo chicken.

The venue, in the heritage-listed Donkey Wheel House building, now offers dine-in service. You’ll find yourself surrounded by cycling memorabilia like jerseys and bikes that look like they’re going up the walls, a nod to the shopfront’s former life as a bicycle repair shop.

Enelssie Cafe CBD
Ground Floor/673 Bourke Street, Melbourne (entrance via Godfrey Street)
0404 017 828

Hours:
Tue to Sat 11am–8pm

@enelssiecafegrill