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Lo-fi wines, hi-fi music, heart-warming food.
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It’s hard to say what the biggest lure is at Hope St Radio. Is it the urban courtyard setting with the fire burning under the trees and the warm glow of the restaurant behind? The DJs cueing ambient tunes to set the mood while livestreaming to the online Hope St radio station? The focus on natural or low-intervention wines sourced everywhere from Mt Gambier to Burgundy? The quality and calibre of chef Ellie Bouhadana’s cooking? Whatever the answer, this is currently one of Melbourne’s coolest, most contemporary wine bars.
Arriving in the courtyard of this converted 19th-century technical college to find a lively crowd of twentysomethings milling around a log fire is like stumbling into a house party. The vibe’s a little bit Barcelona plaza, a little bit Berlin underground. Everyone’s welcome.
The young staff are pleasant and accommodating; ask nicely and they might even be able to squeeze you in for dinner (competition for bookings is fierce).
There’s a vintage schoolroom look to this revamped TAFE college space, right down to the metal-framed chairs and tables and crayon-inspired wall art. The styling is subtle but sharp, neatly capturing the cut of the place.
Natural wines are the thing here; whatever’s orange and poured by the glass is the general drink of choice. There are also a couple of Stomping Ground ales on tap, brewed down the road in Collingwood.
The food is a modest menu of eight or so plates, but chef Ellie Bouhadana makes sure each one of them is worth it – from her oil-crisp focaccia to a bracingly fresh raw tuna dusted with shavings of dry-cured tuna and a pitch-perfect ragù loaded with pork, chicken and rabbit.
Oversized speakers pump beats live through the space, but volumes are kept (mostly) at conversation-friendly levels. Still, Hope St always feels like a party that’s about to happen.
Owners Pete Baxter and Jack Shaw build the drinks list to suit their own tastes. Translated, that might be an essential offering of classic cocktails (Negroni, Manhattan, dry gin Martini with a zesty twist of orange) or bone-dry Sherry, but the focus is always firmly on low- or no-intervention wines.
“The most delicious fruit makes the most delicious wine,” says Baxter, who also makes Yarra Valley wines on the side under his own label, Paradise Falls. “If you have good fruit you don’t need to add anything, and you don’t get good fruit without good farming.”
It’s a dynamic list of producers who’ll be unfamiliar to many drinkers, so there’s plenty to discover. Just ask the staff what’s great by the glass and go from there.
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Gather your besties around the fire before or after dinner. Or both.
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