Where - 246 Victoria St. North Melbourne

Price - $20 ($15 Parma & Pot on Tuesdays)

Website - https://centralclubhotel.com.au

Reviewers –Lee & Nikki

During the latter half of last year after watching one too many episodes of Hot Ones on YouTube, I decided to try my hand at making hot sauce. The first batch was a bit of a dumpster fire, but chalk it up to a learning experience. The second batch was much better but still a bit mild (mostly habaneros and jalapeños, nothing crazy hot just yet) . So for the third batch I wanted to go hot... proper hot. I wanted to use some of the hottest chilis known to man, Carolina Reapers.

So during the December break I hopped on a tram and headed in to the Queen Victoria Market. After a bit of browsing I found one stall with what I was after… Reapers aplenty. I grabbed a bagful and was headed home when the Central Club Hotel caught my eye. It looked like it had some work done.

A bit of history - I have wanted to try the Central Club for a while, it looked like a bit of a dive but that has never stopped us in the past, some of our best parmas have been in divey pubs - However pre-renovations the kitchen for the Central Club was only open for lunch and not for dinner, which made it super hard to get out and do a review as 95% of our reviews take place on Thursday after work.

So with a bag of reapers in hand I poked my head into the Central Club. It was a new pub! Completely refitted with a focus on craft beer and tap takeovers. I grabbed a pint and checked the menu, even though the kitchen is now being run by Burgerlove they still made room for a parma on the “Classics” section of the menu. I made a mental note that we needed to check them out ASAP in the new year … which I promptly forgot about until receiving a tweet from a reader reminding me to do so, and last night that is exactly what we did.