Brico

Is this the ideal Melbourne wine bar? We could be wrong, but it doesn’t feel like the goal at Brico is to reinvent the wheel, build a better mousetrap or exercise any of those other cliches about flipping the script. What it’s about instead is taking the essence of a certain kind of wine bar and making every part of it as great as it can possibly be, from the service to the music to the food and, of course, the wine. And to do all those things without making it seem fussy or forced. Sometimes simple is harder than it looks.

The good news is they’ve nailed it. This might’ve been helped by the fact that the five friends who dreamed it up are by no means inexperienced in these matters. Phil Bracey was a co-owner of legendary London wine bar P.Franco, for which his designer partner Tegan Hendel produced its distinctive graphics and poster art. Chef Simon Ball-Smith worked at Bright, an offshoot of P.Franco, Robyn Nethercote worked at Quality Chop House, another top-flight London wine haunt, and her partner Josh Begbie worked at Brawn, a likewise-celebrated spot in East London.

If all that time in the trenches at some of the UK’s most essential wine-drinking venues wasn’t enough, the crew’s local form is also damn impressive; you might’ve seen Phil and Josh on the floor at Bar Liberty, Robyn at 121BC or Poly in Sydney, and you’ve probably eaten Simon’s snacks at Public Wine Shop. In other words, these guys know what’s up.