The synergy between the food and drinks is real at this electric, eclectic inner-city bottle shop, bar and ristorante by a highly respected trio of Italian tastemakers.
Hardly anyone has had so huge an impact on the wine culture of Sydney – and perhaps even Australia as a whole – in the past decade as sommelier, importer and distributor Giorgio De Maria. The fun-loving wine ninja first turned heads at 121BC, the dearly missed, improbably small Surry Hills wine bar and bottle shop he ran that celebrated the wild diversity of Italian wine with a remarkable degree of intimacy and approachability. Others might know him as the co-founder of Rootstock – the dearly missed, improbably influential natural-wine festival he orchestrated for five years alongside wine writer Mike Bennie, sake master Matt Young, and Icebergs sommelier James Hird.
But even if you’ve never met the man, you’ve almost certainly met one of his wines – an ever-growing stable of (mostly Italian) low-intervention labels he brings in under the Giorgio De Maria Fun Wines banner, found in many of the country’s best bars, bottle shops and restaurants. Now, with the opening of Paski Vineria Popolare, he offers the chance to drink them all under the same roof, with even more wines courtesy of friend and fellow importer Mattia Dicati (Vino Mito Wine Imports), alongside food by former 10 William St chef Enrico Tomelleri.
It’s one heck of an attractive prospect, made even more so by the flexibility of it all – casual drinks and snacks on the ground level, a small restaurant upstairs and the option to scour the shelves for a bottle to take home. Welcome to the hotness.
Perhaps the small bar/restaurant/bottle shop hybrid hasn’t taken off in Sydney the way it has in Europe or Melbourne because no previous attempt has been executed as well as Paski. Look at the wines – all 450 or so them, grouped by producer rather than colour, region or grape variety – given a heightened sense of occasion thanks to imposing, dramatically lit shelves by sculptor Dion Horstmans. Feel the contour and craftsmanship of the glassware by local artist Brian Hirst. Marvel at the tiny open kitchens downstairs and up in the compact dining room, Paski Sopra. Have a chuckle at Torino artist Gianluca Cannizzo’s expansive mural that playfully riffs on da Vinci’s The Last Supper, complete with a cameo by Paski herself, De Maria’s border collie.
The synergy between the food and drinks is real, as is the urge to explore every nook and cranny of the tight, narrow space. And it all thrums with the energy of a keen, savvy crowd who, like you, know they’ve stumbled onto a very good thing.
