Simply Dumpling

Although this place was PACKED on opening night, by the time we came in to dine the next week we were the basically the only customers. The ten of us sat at a long table in the corner, and over the course of the night there wasn’t a single other table filled except for the one the staff ate at a few hours in. Sadface.
The décor and vibe is nice — lots of fairy lights with soft lighting, and a large wine rack lining the back wall. The restaurant itself is an awkward mix of passable service and fine dining touches. They pulled out your chair for you, put the napkin on your lap, changed your plates between courses… and then ignored you when you wanted to take a drink order. If you’re going to try and do the fine dining thing, usually you have to have the service to match. The menus also aesthetically looked pretty cheap, and a few of them were missing pages, or had two of the same page in a row.
I was fairly impressed by their drink menu — it was full of fancy champagne cocktails and a diverse handful of wines. As an added bonus, the cocktails looked and tasted just as impressive as they sounded on the paper. Unfortunately, non-​alcoholic drinks are pretty much the same price as their boozy counterparts!
Onto the food. For a place called Simply Dumpling, it wasn’t really simple and there weren’t many dumplings. I was not very impressed when I opened the menu and found just one small page of dumplings. It was also MUCH more expensive than I was expecting — this isn’t your cheap, dirty yum-​cha joint. Regardless of that initial shock, the food itself was fantastic — each and every dumpling was perfect, and they staggered the order so that we were never swamped with too much food at once. Good job kitchen!
If you live around Fitzroy Street, you’ll know that this spot is basically playing musical restaurants — there’s a new one every four months or so. I don’t know what it is, but I’m tempted to say that this venue is cursed! I really want to like this place. I REALLY do. But I’m really not sure how long it will last.