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MoVida
Reviewed
Food
- Beef Cheek
- Setas
- Paella with Duck Leg
- Cerdo
The Good
The Beef Cheek is deeply braised and properly tender, with a slight char on the exterior that adds a caramelised bitterness instead of letting the dish tip into sweetness. This is what a braise should be. The cauliflower purée underneath is silky and knows its role — it’s there to carry the jus, not to compete. Worth mopping up with bread, and a strong case for ordering a second serve.
The Mediocre
The Setas features a crispy potato cylinder topped with lion’s mane and black oyster mushrooms, finished with an egg yolk and a sherry vinegar hit. The contrast between the crunchy base and the meaty mushrooms works, and the vinegar keeps it from going heavy. Competent and interesting enough to order; not interesting enough to remember.
The Bad
The rice on the Paella with Duck Leg barely covers the pan — paper-thin, certainly under half a centimetre deep. What’s there is aggressively over-salted to the point of distraction. The duck leg was cooked properly, which somehow makes the rest of the dish more galling rather than less. At this price, in this restaurant, this is hard to defend — one of the flatter paellas you’ll encounter in Melbourne.
Meanwhile, the Cerdo (slow-roasted pig’s mask) sounds dramatic on paper, but on the plate it arrives as a thick slab that’s roughly 80% fat, with skin that should crackle but doesn’t. There’s very little here that’s edible, and nothing that justifies the real estate it takes up on the bill.
The Verdict
MoVida has been trading on its Hosier Lane address and two-decade reputation long enough that a mixed table can pass itself off as a destination experience. The beef cheek is genuinely excellent — one of the better braises in the CBD — and would hold up in any serious restaurant in the city. But a paella that’s over-salted and barely filled, a pig’s mask that’s mostly fat, and a SETAS that’s fine but forgettable don’t add up to a meal worth the spend. Come for the beef cheek and a carafe of Albariño, and call it there. The kitchen owes the rest of the menu a serious rethink.
Would Penguin Eat Again?
No. It feels very much like a tourist trap these days and simply isn’t worth the money at all.