With the vast resource of the Prince Wine Store at your disposal, this is an essential spot for all wine lovers, especially when you couple that with Nicky Riemer’s superb wine-friendly Euro-eclectic cooking.
“Having the Prince Wine Store next door means we can do some great things with our Coravin wines,” says front of house manager Tiffany Riemer (sister to chef Nicky Riemer, and ex-Cutler & Co). “We’ve done feature flights of some great produces, things like pouring the 2018s from Domain Leflaive – Bourgogne, Puligny-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet ‘Clavoillon’. There’s an interesting Radikon flight coming up – 2013 Ribolla Gialla, 2013 Bianco Oslavje, 2003 Merlot. Things like that.”
Okay, this is no ordinary bistro. Indeed, it was created to fill a hole in their local market that Alex Wilcox and Michael McNamara, the owners of the Prince Wine Store, keenly felt. Somewhere for them to go to lunch, for sure, but also a place where their extraordinary selection of wine could be presented properly – appropriate stemware, correct temperature, properly decanted – with equally good food. Of pan-European inspiration, Bellota touches on the feel of some of the great bars and enotecas of Italy, Spain and France, but does it through a modern, yet far from clinical lens.
Nicky Riemer, former owner of Union Dining and alumnus of Stephanie Alexander’s game-changing eponymous restaurant, is on food duty. Riemer takes a European approach to the menu, with a tilt towards Italy and Spain, and the occasional nod to her paternal Austrian heritage. Expect freshly opened oysters, cheese and charcuterie at any time, and substantial offerings during lunch and dinner service, such as capunti with slow-braised goat ragu, smoked eel brandade with zuni pickle, bavette steak with onion jam and a Madeira jus, or quail saltimbocca with jus gras and agro dolce parsley.
There’s a working list at Bellota, but a stroll through the aperture into the wine store opens up a whole world of choice, accompanied by insightful advice, which is available on either side of the wall. And a corkage fee of $15 will get that bottle opened and served the way it should be. There is also a vast selection of aperitifs, spirits and fortifieds, with 140-odd cider and beer options for those still needing more choice.
From a single site adjacent to the Princes Theatre, business partners Con Christopoulos and Josh Brisbane have – over the course of a decade or two – acquired the entire Spring Street frontage up to the lane that borders the Imperial Hotel. Starting with the European and Melbourne Supper Club – which saved a whole…
From his original base at Toorak Cellars, Lyndon Kubis, along with business partners Renton Carlyle and Mark Hopkinson, have expanded into territory less well serviced, including Milton in Malvern and the notoriously dry zone of Surrey Hills (not to be confused with Sydney’s Surry hills, which is afforded much better amenity) in Melbourne’s east, with…
If you’re of a mind to put up a chardonnay from new-breed local star Mulline against a Raveneau Chablis, you can do that here, paired with some of the best food in the region. If it’s hot, you can then kick off your shoes and walk across the sand to cool your heels in the ocean. Perfect.
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