Food & Drink. Travel. Est. 2005
There are many places to drink wine in South Africa. But there are few wine bars and even fewer that hit the spot like Cape Town’s Publik. It’s a sad state of affairs when rather than visit a wine bar, I prefer to tap into my own cellar at home. But first, let’s look at what we want from a wine bar. In my previous home city of Melbourne, a wine bar would focus on boutique producers of wine (sometimes […]
The view alone is worth it at the new Vue de Monde. Photo: Adriane Strampp In case you hadn’t heard,Lui Bar at Shannon Bennett’s new Vue de Monde at the top of The Rialto is open to all comers. And it is not only worth it for the drinks but the vue (view geddit?) of the traffic streaming through Melbourne at night. The attention to detail and the levels of service at Lui Bar are unmatched in Australia. First you […]
Like its name, the fit out of this latest Der Raum spin-off is very slick and let’s say Americano. That’s slick tiling and panelling. The narrow bar inset with copper. And the fact it’s very very exclusive, allowing only 15 people in at once. That means while you are there sipping you hanky panky (above) behind the shut gate, late coming friends have to wait in the cold with nothing but Melbourne’s smallest artspace, the Twenty by Thirty gallery, to […]
How much should you pay for wine? Or let’s put it this way: How much more than the cost of food should wine be? In Melbourne the cost of a main course in a restaurant is fast catching up with the cost of wine. If I’m feeling poor I may spend $40 to $50 on a bottle in a restaurant. Feeling rich and I may double the figure. To put this into context in the kinds of restaurants where I’m […]
There’s something about those dark back alleys that get to me. My first taste for it was in Europe, the alleyways of ancient Italian towns. The south of France. And who can resist the pull of Barcelona’s Barri Gòtic. And so it is with Melbourne a city that hides laneways off laneways, among jumbled warehouses built when the city was a Gold town. Hosier Lane is probably one of the most interesting, covered with stencil art and filled with various […]