Donovan Cooke and Philippa Sibley-Cooke have created this new modern French-inspired restaurant in a space designed by Nonda Katsalidis. David Lawler has designed the wine list for flexibility, which enables him to include an ever-changing kaleidoscope of small run wines. The list is medium-sized, with its cleanly presented groups listed by varieties or by regional groups of varieties in a way that wine enthusiasts will enjoy. It’s an international collection, with good representations from France, Italy, Germany, Austria and New Zealand, plus well-chosen fortifieds from Spain and Portugal. There’s a distinct Victorian flavour to the local collection, which is perhaps a little diluted by the presence of several also-rans from the Mornington Peninsula. These are alongside, I might add, several very good wines from this region. Burgundy is the best represented of the overseas vignobles, with a fine-cross section of Cote de Nuits reds (there isn’t a single Beaune) and Cote de Beaune whites. Prices are eminently justifiable, and the Rhone Valley reds are particularly well chosen and affordable. There’s a smattering of older wines throughout the list, including old Balmoral Syrah and Giaconda Chardonnay. In short, I’d have absolutely no difficulty in giving this collection a serious work-out.
