It’s not for everyone, but the audacity is exactly what gives Little Rose its brilliance

“Oh my god, those potatoes!” It’s a phrase I’ve heard more than once, from other food writers and also coming out of my own mouth, in reference to the pommes puree at Fitzroy’s Little Rose. It’s one of those dishes that I find myself daydreaming about randomly, and that I’ll describe rapturously to anyone who cares to listen. It also, in many ways, encapsulates what’s so thrilling about this particular restaurant.

The potatoes themselves are pure Francophilia: classic, rich, impossibly creamy, thickly silky – a paragon of the form. Lots of people cook this exact dish very well, though I’ve had my share of tacky, leaden versions, too. (The starch can be tricky: under-whip and they fail to get that velvet texture; overwhip and they turn gummy.)

In the hands of chef Rosheen Kaul, the technique is close to perfect. But it’s what Kaul adds on top that’s making me and so many of my fellow food-obsessives swoon: a no-holds-barred, utterly funk-tastic Suzhou-style crab roe sauce that tastes like the guts of the ocean in all the best ways. I’ve no doubt it would make certain old-school French chefs swoon for a different reason. The audacity! That audacity is exactly what gives Little Rose its brilliance. (And, no, I don’t use that word lightly.)

To Kaul, I’m sure the thing I’m calling audacity is simply a natural expression of talent and identity forged in many countries and many kitchens. If anyone tried to define this chef by her ethnicity, heritage, or places she has lived and worked, they’d wind up with a kaleidoscope that covers much of Asia and Oceania – the closest Kaul has come to defining it for herself is in the name of her first cookbook, Chinese-ish, but even that is a wild simplification.

In Melbourne, after working in kitchens such as two-hatted Lee Ho Fook and Dinner by Heston, Kaul made her mark as head chef at Etta in Brunswick East. Since leaving that post in 2024, she has been writing recipes, appearing on MasterChef, and running pop-ups, the most recent of which did so well in its Fitzroy location that she decided to make it permanent.

The space was most recently Cantina Moro and before that Alta, both Italian restaurants operated by Luke Drum and James Tait, who have collaborated with Kaul on Little Rose, too. It’s always been a charming couple of rooms, and with the recent brasserie-inspired refresh for Little Rose, it feels like that perfect little restaurant you’d stumble upon down a Paris laneway.

Kaul has cleverly used the word Chinoiserie to describe the style of cooking, evoking the European interpretation of Chinese and Asian artistry popular in the 18th century. Here, that idea is turned on its head, with Kaul taking classic French dishes and interpreting them through an unapologetically Chinese lens.

Take the fish of the day, a gorgeously cooked monkfish the day I had it, which rides a decadent line between a brown butter and caper-heavy meuniere and Sichuan green chilli-braised fish. Kaul somehow channels both dishes with equal smarts and reverence, and invents a new classic in the process.

She borrows the Chaozhou method of marinating seafood in strong liquor for her coquillages froid, but uses vin jaune from the Jura region of France along with coriander, fresh chilli and garlic. This creates the sweetest, most tender clams, served chilled with an underpinning of vin jaune nuttiness.

Vol-au-vent is reimagined as a mushroom, tofu and golden egg stir-fry, with wheels of buttery pastry as accompaniment.

Some dishes play it light on the Frenchification: a Kampot pepper and pearl meat saute is described as “au poivre” but it’s more a trick of language than cooking. I’m not complaining; the use of pearl meat in this context is thrilling, and if anything it lends a decidedly Australian angle to Kaul’s repertoire.

The wine list is predictably wonderful for Francophiles, but there are some fascinating Chinese bottles, too, as well as a few detours into Italy, Germany and even Georgia. Drum and Tait, as well as Kaul’s longtime front-of-house collaborator Rachel Toca, provide the kind of personal, fully invested service that you only ever find in businesses that are a true labour of love.

This is not a restaurant for everyone – audacity doesn’t typically aim to please the masses. The food is unapologetic in its funk and swagger. The team is small; the pace is slower than at slicker, more resourced venues. But eating at Little Rose offers a rare opportunity, one in which you can observe food culture evolve in real time. This is something new, something vital, an expression of an unbridled global identity that is, increasingly, where the frontier of culinary excitement lies.

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