The menu and room are stripped right back, but there’s plenty to love at this new local

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With all the slick, big-budget restaurants that open these days, there’s something refreshing about a venue so clearly put together with sweat instead of capital. The Forager’s Fork, at the bottom end of Sydney Road in Brunswick, is just such a place. It’s an odd little restaurant, without an obvious hook or theme – there’s no easy genre to define it. The walls are brick and wood and without art to give you a sense of what kind of joint you’re stepping into. It’s a small operation: chef in the kitchen, server on the floor. A blackboard lists the set menu of the day.

This is a family affair, run by a chef, his wife, and sometimes their daughter. The Forager’s Fork began as a pop-up during last year’s Sydney Road festival, in what used to be a Korean barbecue restaurant. Chef Andy Beswick renovated the space, while still working full time as head chef at the Lincoln Hotel in Carlton. Gradually, he began opening for weekend service, and then began full service in late March.

I love that this is a restaurant built by a family for the community they live in, not something thought up in a boardroom by a PR company.

Beswick’s time at the Lincoln will probably give you more insight into what to expect from this menu than anything else I might tell you. The chef came to Australia from the UK first in 2018 and then permanently in 2020, and the offering at the Forager’s Fork is like a pared-back, high-quality, British-influenced pub menu. There are two local beers on tap, a few simple but well-made cocktails, and a short wine list. The food is forged from what Beswick gets from his suppliers, who are all pointedly local.

There was a lovely rusticism to a pork hock and chicken terrine, served with parsley and radish salad and a generous helping of crusty bread. Generosity is a theme here. Tuna crudo came in fat slabs, while an $18 serve of wagyu shin and cheddar croquettes, rich and cheesy and delicious, would qualify as a small (though not exactly light) meal on their own.

Tender and bloody kangaroo is teamed with nicely charred sprouting broccoli, while lion’s mane mushrooms over a white bean puree with shaved fennel was one of the more interesting and varied vegetarian mains I’ve seen lately.

The intensely local, intensely seasonal and tightly edited menu can mean that there’s some repetition. I ordered a side of blistered cabbage, but found almost the exact same wedge of cabbage on the snapper main I’d chosen. A heads-up when ordering might have been nice.

But the service is friendly and eager, and that enthusiasm more than makes up for the edge of trepidation that peeks through here and there; I’d take this brand of hospitality over slick and cynical any day. The clear lack of glib professionalism or marketing-driven cleverness at the Forager’s Fork is also part of what makes it so endearing.

Do I think some art on the walls might help? Perhaps. Maybe a plant or two. But I also love that this is a restaurant built by a family for the community they live in, not something thought up in a boardroom by a PR company.

Restaurants like these almost make me nervous. You can tell in almost every aspect of the place that this is a passion project, built from love and hope and hard-earned money. It’s a little wonky, a little precarious, but also very lovable – much like Brunswick itself.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.