Pebble Is Summer’s Hottest Pop-Up

Former Amaru head chef Cam Tay-Yap’s roaming kitchen project began in the car park of Oakleigh South bouldering gym La Roca last November. “We called it Pebble because it started next to a climbing wall – a small rock,” he says. “So much of this came from a joke with friends that got out of hand in the best way.” 

After a year of makeshift and borrowed kitchens, the free-spirited project has landed a semi-permanent home at the former Earth Angels site in North Melbourne. The new chapter keeps the scrappy energy but adds creature comforts. “Pebble 2.0 is the spirit and tenacity of the car park days,” he says, “but now with running water, electricity, a liquor licence and air con.”

Pebble is open Tuesday to Thursday for dinner; Friday and Saturday for lunch and dinner; and Sunday for lunch, with an upstairs room now bookable for functions. The residency runs until late April (with scope to stretch the end date a little), after which the space is earmarked for a tempura concept by Kentaro Okada (Hareruya Pantry, Chiaki).

The room feels lived-in and personal, with photographs from past Pebble services in Tokyo, Penang and Bali, works by Melbourne food world it-girl artist Joanna Hu, and paintings by Tay-Yap’s New York-based uncle Eng Tay. Tay-Yap’s fine-dining background (which includes time in the Attica kitchen) gives the menu its polish, while its direction comes from a six-month, 10-country pop-up tour he’s just returned from. “I don’t love labels,” he says. “It’s inspired by the places we cooked: Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.”

Snacks are playful and loud. The car park-favourite fried potato flatbread has made the jump. And Vietnamese-style chicken wings are fried hard and without batter, then tossed in a nuoc mam glaze. “All the salt, all the acid – it makes you salivate,” Tay-Yap says.

Mains swing from Korea to the tropics. Flank steak comes galbi-style – marinated in kiwifruit, gochujang, gochugaru and doenjang – with house-made kimchi, a perilla-soy dressing and a tangle of organic leaves from Five Tails Farm in Piedmont, 90 kilometres east of Melbourne. Fish changes with supply. Right now, it’s hapuka, rolled with a green herb mousse and steamed. “Two textures in one,” says Tay-Yap. It’s served with a “spicy, floral [and] rich” green mango, green papaya and ginger-flower sambal butter. 

Dessert includes a bright coconut ice-cream with coconut dulce, fig-leaf oil and spiced cherries. The Milo dinosaur tart quadruples down with Milo pâte sucrée, Milo mousse, Milo cream, plus a side hit of raw Milo. “The best part is the crunchy bits.” Meanwhile, the mango mochi number wraps marigold sorbet in soft rice dough, shaved yellow peaches and Chantilly on top. “I can’t get the fine dining out of me. I look at it and think, that’s … quite intense.”

Drinks feel equally elevated. Non-alcoholic options include a chrysanthemum and foraged-honeysuckle spritz – “kind of like a non-alc champagne” – and a mango-marigold shrub. Orthopaedic surgeon and friend Lucas Annabell runs cocktails and co-curates the wine. “He’ll do surgery, then come shake Daiquiris,” Tay-Yap says. “He’s a superstar.” Wine is mostly approachable and food-friendly, anchored by five Avani cuvées by the glass or bottle, but Annabell’s private cellar feeds a handwritten black book of single bottles at sharp prices. Then there’s the secret list: “Ask for the Doctor’s Orders.” 

Tay-Yap’s partner Trish Pham, a sonographer by day, works across Pebble. “She’d never worked hospo before me,” he says. “Now she’s hosted, waited, washed dishes, even manned the fryer for chicken ribs.” Service is deliberately casual and priced to encourage repeat visits. “I don’t want it to feel like fine dining or a special-occasion place,” he says. “Come for a drink and snacks, bring the dog, hang in the back – we worked hard to keep it approachable.” 

Pebble
225-229 Victoria Street, West Melbourne
No phone

Hours:
Tue to Thu 5pm–late
Fri & Sat midday–3pm, 5pm–late
Sun midday–3pm

pebbledining.com 
@pebble.dining