Once upon a time a few years ago I was going to meet a few friends down at Revolver on Chapel Street for some birthday drinks. I had shown up early (as I am prone to being a punctual fascist), and rather than drink one $6 wine at a time, I knew I could drink two house wines for the same price up the road at the Duke of Windsor Hotel. Where is this going? What does this have to do with Hax? Or Food? Well. The Duke of Windsor were forced to close due to rising rents and what not (a likely story… well, yes. The Punters Club in Fitzroy met exactly the same fate… later to be reborn as the Northcote Social Club) and it was promptly turned into a trendy pizzeria called The Lucky Coq.
Five of us ended up down there after work (or not after work in my case) on Wednesday night to partake in some rebranded CUB brew and $4 pizzas*.
While waiting for Special O’Clock, we snacked on a generous $4 bowl of roasted pitted olives, with a few garlic cloves thrown in for good measure (Yes!). The in house brew (which is actually some rebranded generic beer from the CUB), The Blonde Coq (There’s also a stout called the Black Coq) is a refreshing wheat beer not dissimilar to Hoegaarden or those trendy lo-carb beers that are about now. It’s also known as the Blonde Bimbo at it’s sister pizzeria. Only two of us partook in the beer at first, the other three indulged in some of the flavoured vodkas available (Tangerine! To name just one…) and we tried an Evil Twin (Vanilla vodka, Apple juice, Red Bull and far too easy to drink) later on in the night.
The pizzas are amazing for $4. Even for their usual price (or unusual, the specials span across most of the day) all are less than $10.
Thin crisp and bubbly bases covered with quality toppings, I sampled the Caesar (Basically a Caesar salad on a pizza) and the Napoletana. The mouthful of Caesar I had was delicious, missing the egg but still delicious. Nice and bitey from the anchovies and bacon. The Napoletana, missing the mozzarella you’d probably expect from one of those home delivery places but including olives, capers and an obvious smattering of chilli over tomato passata. My only gripe with the pizza is that I found myself redistributing the toppings over the pizza a bit more evenly, and it’s not justified considering how long it takes to get to the table from actually ordering the pizza.
The dessert pizzas are also included in the $4 special, of which I tried the Apple and the Chocolate. Slightly smaller size, uneven topping distribution, they use dark cooking chocolate buds (I’m not really a fan of dark chocolate on its own) melted straight onto the pizza. Overall, they were pretty good for $4 but I would have ordered a Berry Pizza had I known that they used dark chocolate.
Overall the bar has a pretty trendy atmosphere but I can’t help but feel a bit jaded about the Duke of Windsor’s fate. The decor is a bit bohemian bourgeoise, and the soundtrack agreeable (I could recognise Bowie, The Strokes, MGMT, Arcade Fire and PJ Harvey).
The service leaves a bit to be desired as we waited quite a while for our pizzas (our count being impaired by the quantity of beer consumed to pass the time). I guess as a bistro style joint where you order at the counter (from rubber hipped kids just as unimpressed about gentrification as you are) and pick up your own cutlery in such a trendy place as Chapel Street, this kind of service is de-rigueur.
Lucky Coq
179 Chapel St
Windsor VIC 3181
T: 9525 1288
W: www.luckycoq.com.au
*$4 Pizza specials are from 12noon-4pm (Mon-Fri) and 7pm-11pm (Sun-Thurs). The kitchen is open until 2:30am.
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