NOW EXPERIENCING:Enter Via Laundry Bar

Read time 3 Mins

Posted 04 Sep 2024

By
Pat Nourse


Melbourne's celebrated Enter Via Laundry now has a bar next door

The celebrated Indian fine-diner has sprouted a bar where cocktails star, while the snack menu offers a taste of the Enter Via Laundry magic without having to commit to a tasting menu.

Wine served at Enter Via Laundry Bar
Why you go

Close your eyes. Picture the great cocktail capitals of the world. What do you see? New York? New Orleans? London? Tokyo? Melbourne? But what about Delhi? Mumbai? Not so much. Or not yet, at least. But if you’d like to get a taste of what Indian cocktail ambition might taste like, it’s right here, hidden in a nondescript shopfront on Nicholson Street. 

Spoiler alert: there is no laundry. This bar is an offshoot of a restaurant that started as a supper club. Its very earliest iteration, back when owner and chef Helly Raichura was first feeling her way out of life in HR and into cooking, was in her suburban home. Diners were greeted with a note stuck out the front pointing the way and so Enter Via Laundry – one of the great restaurant names of recent times – was born. It’s not a supper club any more, but that slightly secret air of discovery remains a key part of its DNA. So here at its new, more permanent home, there’s not much in the way of signage out on the street, but this new bar section lights the way.

Why you stayThis quietly elegant little room offers a taste of the Enter Via Laundry magic without having to commit to a tasting menu (the most luxe of which is a journey over nine-plus courses for $212) or book three months in advance. Also: cocktails.
What drink to orderYes, cocktails. There’s also beers (including a zesty lager and a grapefruity dry-hopped pale ale from the Sri Lankan-Australian brewers at Clayton microbrewery Two Rupees), plus a handful of wines by the glass from the main EVL cellar (Frankland Estate riesling, for instance, and sangiovese from Canberra stars Ravensworth), but the cocktails are really where it’s at. They’re in two sections: Indian/Australian and Classics. The classics are, yes, pretty classic: a Manhattan, an Old Fashioned plus a Negroni, Martini and a Gimlet all made with gins from Sri Lankan-Victorian distillery Dutch Rules. The Indian/Australian action, meanwhile, is spicier. Enter Via Laundry is all about the meeting of Indian and Australian flavours, so the tang of Davidson plum and chaat masala meet in the vodka-driven Kala Khatta, lemon myrtle accents a gin-spiked Mango Lassi, and paperbark smoke joins Morris single-malt whisky, black cardamom and bitters in the punchy Paperbark Old Fashioned. Just want something fresh and delicious? We love the tea-scented Ginger Spritz, which balances Caribbean rum with ginger, sugarcane and jasmine and Ceylon teas. Nice.
Wine and Indian snacks at Enter Via Laundry Bar
Chilled beer and delicious food served at Enter Via Laundry Bar
What to eatDon’t even think about visiting EVL and not ordering the potatoes fried in spicy gram-flour batter, aka bataka na bhajiya, replete with Helly’s tomato and pineapple ketchup. A luxed-up take on papdi chaat, meanwhile, piles spanner crab, corn and chilli on a fine, crunchy cracker (with a paneer option for the no-crab crowd), and nargisi kofta presents like a handsome chicken Scotch egg, complemented with a coriander-mint chutney. Close things out on Helly’s falooda – a pretty little glass layered with a sweet cascade of ice-cream, rose syrup, vermicelli, jelly, cashew nuts and basil seeds.