Long Prawn
Running a restaurant is like being the mayor of a city
Taste Maker is a food guide from creatives, artists and professional eaters. Follow → Instagram → Previous Guests
Long Prawn - An artistic food practice headed up by F GM Mora and L B Stephens that delivers rigorously researched food expertise heavily seasoned with creative event design. Food enveloped in community, props and performance from buffet tables to nouveau- haute cuisine: responsive, rewarding and resourceful eating, ideas, events and workshops. Producing food events that thoughtfully and resourcefully respond to a theme, location and purpose. Thinking and cooking since 2015.
Where do you live most of the year?
Campbells Creek (Victoria) (FM)
CBD (Melbourne) (LBS)
What do you look for in a restaurant when you walk in?
The elements of a good restaurant are pretty nebulous but these are some things we think make them hum. Owner-operator, running a restaurant is like being the mayor of a city, you have to deal with everything from waste, to keeping your constituents happy, servicing the community, supply chains and more, to do this well you have to be there consistently.
Beyond this a venue that has a few different gears is also lovely, a softness during morning or lunch, then an uppity beat at night. There is no better occasion then going to to a restaurant, so when you walk in your want to feel that in someway, whether that is seas of tables with piles of saucy plates and tea spilt everywhere, or a toffy waiter greeting you and taking your coat, both hallmarks you are in for a nice time.
What is your final meal?
Yum cha but all the trolleys come straight from the kitchen to my table and are being pushed by various significant characters from all periods of my life (FM)
Bottomless oysters humorously named and shucked to order by Anthony Bourdain. Paired with 3 bone dry martinis, a sidecar of queen green olives and Michael Nyman’s 1-100 playing at dangerously high volume. (LBS)
3 guests for dinner, dead or alive?
Mirka Mora, Dua Lipa, Young Jamie Oliver: I think it would make for a really fun chat and some thrilling party tricks, also I have faith my grandmother Mirka could hold court with any star and still steal the show. There are heaps of things I'd like to tell her too! I’d cook something like duck and light it on fire at the table, I'd make Jamie cut it all up, bit ov this, bit of that. (FM)
Odorama 2025 with John Waters, William Shakespeare reciting restaurant and food reviews in iambic pentameter; excavating dark and seedy gossip from Miss Hello Kitty. (LBS)
Long Prawn’s Taste Maker Guide
Breakfast: Breakfast at Harry’s (Hunted + Gathered)
Order: We would make him cook some kind of pancake or a clafoutis full of berries, a stack of bacon, he would naturally have great filter coffee, and hopefully some of his hazelnut spread which is very nice and salty. He makes things look very nice and has nice plates and small stainless steel trays to put everything in. His garden is tiny, so it holds you like a hug and sways with pretty Japanese anemones. He’s a dab hand, our friend Harry. If you message him, I'm sure he’d have you over for breakfast.
Coffee: Scarlet Coffee
Order: Scarlet Coffee in Footscray Market, our friend Ngọc (Shop Bao Ngọc) first introduced us to this spot, and we have been back many times since. The straight iced coffee is great and will jazz you up enough to tackle your shopping list, if you're feeling a little luscious enter their vast menu of crème brûlée foam top coffees amongst other genre-defying big drinks. Visit the palm reader just down the arcade if you’re requiring some definition in your week.
Lunch: Das Kaffeehaus
Order: On paper, a Central Victorian Viennese coffee house, where the staff are known to wear quaint hats, little vests, be incredibly friendly, sit down at the table with you to take your order, have an array of cakes, obscure traditional Viennese coffees, brats of the good kind, huge numbers of retirees and day trippers and normal trippers all sounds a bit seems insufferable.
And despite this, or because of this rather, it is a total joy. It flies in the face of every cool guy cafe, the food is matter of fact with no great deal of fucks given, but it’s delicious and it always hits. Your drinks always come on their own tiny tray, along with water (a theme is emerging here). The host, a man who seems to know the breadth of the world's offerings, greets you at the door before sitting back down next to it, perhaps gesturing to a waiter to lead you to one of the many ornate tables or booths.
An early lunch of Fiaker Gulasch (frankfurter, gherkin, egg, small roll and a side of Hungarian goulash) and one of their very tall and skinny Pils beers, followed by a ‘Maria Theresia’ (double shot espresso with cointreau, cream and candied orange), A Bankl reißen. You’ll need to.
Special dinner: Oriental Impression Grill Restaurant
Oriental Impressions is all class and atmosphere, it's special because generally you need to book, and once you sit, you feel very special *a line builds outside*.
One 5-star review shares, “go with an open mind and an adventurous soul” I know they were feeling prophetic after the experience, I have been there, it could have been skewered sweet buns or the soft chicken bone, or the slightly crisp, hot and sour potato situation (La Tu Dou Si 酸辣土豆丝), or perhaps it they were still heady from the garlic blanketed eggplant or the butterflied Korean sausages.
While you're there, take a moment to think of the chefs, skewering countless ingredients, like a seamstress with a golden thread, threading literal chives onto a ‘curtain rod’. What could be more special than that? Depending on the occasion, you can fetch a nice bottle of wine from Caldwell Cellars over the road, but we recommend fetching around 4-5 friends, some big bots, and ticking boxes like you’re the door bitch of an exclusive guest list.
Casual dinner: Carnation Canteen
Order: The Carnation non-negotiables include a plate of saucisson sec and a 2-sip dry gin martini on entry. The rest comes at the mercy of the seasons, select growers and Audrey’s fine hand. A cooking tray of pillowy baked custard for dessert, if you’re so lucky.
A place that holds extra charm for us, opened by our friend and collaborator Audrey Shaw and her husband Alexander Di Stefano. When you have witnessed the minutiae and years of observations coming together into one harmonious bird song, it is something to twitch at. Whether you are gnawing a lamb bone at the blush pink marble counter, wistfully sipping a glass of Champagne in the rain, learning Scopa in the courtyard, drowning in Pride slushies with Lazy Susan; or wilfully alone enjoying some curds on toast in the emergency one-seater spot, Carnation will accommodate you as required.
Special shoutouts
Liyin Rice Roll Master: egg cheung fun
Rintel’s Diner: whiskey (neat), chicken gondi soup
Apollo Inn: prawn club sandwich, crème caramel, martini
Le Tuffeau: Domaine Philippe Chatillon 2021 Cotes du Jura Blanc 'Melon a Queue Rouge' VV, Bereche & Fils NV Champagne Brut Reserve
Joe's On Smith: jumbo frankfurts (don’t forget the condiments)
Breadtop: Japanese curry beef donut, egg tart
Charcoal Chicken: Roast chicken gravy roll, or fried chicken burger, ABC on the tv, fried and/or steamed dim sims
Pontian Club: char-grilled chicken steak with Greek salad and fava
Ton & Co: tonkatsu, cabbage, hot english mustard (travels well if you require take home)
Bossa Nova Sushi: grilled beef tongue with yuzu (this has to be ordered but the sushi train is also a joy)
Red Emperor (Chinatown): $75 all you can eat yum cha, 7 days a week
Geezer: cheese twist (Castlemaine Farmers Market)
Masses Bagel: green tomato bagel, add anchovies
The European: the original queen green olive martini
Ria Ayam Penyet: soto ayam
Geralds Bar: oeuf mayonnaise (don’t forget to say your goodbyes before they move to the Enoteca Sileno space on Nicholson street)
Taiyo Sun: tamago toast
Tax Vinegar: almost sold out, follow for the next special releases (buy at various spots, Spring St Grocer still has some)
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True tastemakers 💞