European

A new dining trend is taking over Melbourne with this wine bar at the fore.

REVIEW Freshly shucked, peak-condition Bateman’s Bay oysters? Sliced to order Spanish, Italian and locally made charcuterie? Or how about gnochetti tossed with slow-cooked lamb, anchovies, green olives and ricotta salata? Wine might get top billing at Bellota, given it’s a wine bar attached and with direct access to the Prince Wine Store and its 3000-plus […]

REVIEW Riding the Hobart wine-bar new wave, Ettie’s is the safe word to its more outré peers – a bistro where the pan-roasted chicken evokes rose-hued Sunday lunch reveries and the house sourdough is worth smuggling home for supper. Its slick CBD digs has the ghost of that sweet little wine bar in Paris, while […]

REVIEW Three guys with fine-dining experience walk into a North Fitzroy pub. The punchline? A local with all its hospitality fundamentals in place, a cracker of a wine list and a menu that includes name-brand steak (Hopkins River, O’Connor) with chips and snags with barbecued onions alongside more complex dishes like superb blood pudding and […]

The kitchen crew ushers in a new era at Epocha with a European menu that’s big on flavour and crowd-pleasing comfort, says Michael Harden.

REVIEW There are few Melbourne experiences more Melburnian than shouldering through the narrow doors of The European on a cold afternoon. The long, wood-lined “carriage on the Orient Express” feel of the bustling room, stocked with smart staff, a hissing coffee machine and Portuguese tarts on the curved bar has instant appeal. Same goes for […]

REVIEW There have always been plenty of reasons to go to Epocha. Housed in a beautiful terrace across from the Carlton Gardens, run by two of Melbourne’s most experienced hospitality players and sporting an atmospheric upstairs bar, an all-European wine list and trolleys for both cheese and dessert, it knows how to show you a […]

REVIEW Behind the red front door, there’s a deli brimming with cured meats, cheese and tinned seafood. You’ll be perfectly content poised at the counter here, hefty mortadella sandwich in one hand, house-canned Martini in the other; however, it’s only one of your options. Climb the stairs and you’ll find the bistro, where Allie Webb […]

Two new players on Melbourne’s evolving bar scene show the species is in excellent health. Michael Harden raises a glass to the fresh crop of wine bars.

REVIEW There’s a pleasurably unpretentious spirit to Union Dining, a reminder of that oft-forgotten word, hospitality. Nicky Riemer and Adam Cash’s restaurant road-trips across France, Italy and Spain, evoking bistro-trattoria memories. Start with a rooftop Negroni, before settling downstairs for Riemer’s rustic-leaning offerings, executed with urbane care. Crudo might take the form of kingfish enlivened […]