Neighbourhood Wine — Restaurant in Melbourne

There is a lot to love about Neighbourhood Wine but we didn't have the best experience there. The location is very handy being close to the 96 tram stop on Nicholson Street and as others have mentioned the interior space is lovely. We were sitting at the bar, and the bar stools were super comfy, the atmosphere was vibrant but not so loud that you couldn't have a real conversation. The records being played really added to the fab atmosphere. The space feels plush and cosy. The $40 Sunday lunch special is good value and the entree and main were generous and tasty. The carrot dish to begin with was really delicious, well balanced with textures and flavours. The roast pork with all the trimmings was perfect for an autumn day! Dessert appeared as an afterthought and was difficult to eat, as the base of the 'tart' was overcooked. The milk ice cream was very tasty though. However, we found the service to be not friendly at all, which is odd for Melbourne. I understand that it is a busy Sunday service but we were made to feel very uncomfortable, at one stage it felt as though they were trying to force us to buy more wine, when we had already had two bottles between three of us and didn't need anymore. They required us to be out of the table within 2 hours of our reservation time, but then took 50 minutes to serve dessert. So we weren't able to leave in the allotted time. We ended up having to ask where dessert was, and whilst apparent we had been forgotten there was no apology. We asked for recommendations on the wine list as there were lots of wines that we were not familiar with, but the response made it clear that asking was an imposition. Again, I understand this was a busy Sunday lunch service, but if you don't want to explain your wines in person, perhaps a greater description could be put into the menu, particularly given most wines are natural wines. I try to be helpful by setting a price range (I wish I could say budget isn't an issue but the rent still has to be paid!) and each time the wine suggested was at the very very top of the range suggested. Given there were plenty of wines in the range I offered, I'm surprised that both bottles were at the upper end and coupled with the insistence on buying more, it all felt a little contrived and forced. Anyway it was a lovely lunch, with great food, wonderful ambience and company but the staff did let the experience down. We might go again but with so many great restaurants in Melbourne and closer to home its hard to see us going out of our way to try again. Perhaps a week night night might be the...

We dined last night at Neighbourhood Wine and although the team here were friendly and welcoming and the menu sounded intriguing we found the food a little hit and miss to be honest. This is probably down to our tastes as I’m sure other out there might rave.

An inventive curious menu and quirky surrounds we enjoyed a selection of bites for starters that included oysters, parsnip fritters and nigella cracker creations. Small but tasty. We paired these with a glass of Endflow Quincy J.

We didn’t order a second round of smaller dishes before our mains and maybe we should have because the wait between a mini bites and mains was close to 50 minutes and we were at the point when we were about ready to order breads or something else to arrive quickly when our mains turned up.

KD ordered the pan fried albacore and really loved her dish and really raves about the eggplant. I ordered the pork cooked in milk overnight and it really wasn’t something I enjoyed. More than 50% of the meat content was slices of soft gelatinous fat with zero meat content and was just pointless being on the plate as I was never going to eat it in that state. I did enjoy the pork flesh that I was able to eat but overall a disappointing dish. Yes I know that overnight milk prep is designed to be used with cheaper cuts of meat but I expected better quality on my plate.

The reason we skipped small plates was because we both had an eye on dessert. In fact all threes desserts appealed to me as the represented my childhood on my parents hobby farm. There was a rhubarb meringue option, a quince dessert and a feijoa ginger combination.

I went with cooked feijoa and ginger with a smokey cream and loved this dessert. I think I found a pairing that works more than my usual feijoa and apple crumble and I liked the smoked cream also. This course was KD’s turn to be disappointed as she found her Rhubarb, goat curd and meringue simply too savoury to fully enjoy. She craved additional sweetness in the goats curd that would have made it a truely great dessert for her. She ordered the spritzer on the menu afterwards simply to get a...

Visited Neighbourhood Wine last night with a group of close friends for a special occasion dinner. It’s a place a couple of us have been before and have previously enjoyed the food, wine and atmosphere. Last night was an exception though. The food was wildly unimpressive, the wine didn’t hit the mark and the ambiance was odd.

We started with some of the snack at the top of the menu – the sweet potato and ocean trout. These dishes were miniscule and provided no value for the price paid. The bread that came with the a la carte menu was nice but was served cold with a whipped cream-like butter which was heavily salted.

Our starters were largely unsatisfying. The calamari dish was fresh and light and the tomatoes were tasty however the seasoning and flavouring weren’t at all on the money. The dory fish was decent, as well as the standard pork belly dish. However the ricotta gnudi was very small, kind of odd and just overall unimpressive, with a very unpleasant texture and complete lack of taste.

We finished by sharing two serves of the caramel cake for dessert, which only allowed a large spoonful for each of us – great value for $30. The flavours on this dessert were plain awful. We were kind of bewildered by what was on the plate. What looked like brown sugar ended up tasting like a savory, rosemary-tasting dust. The cake itself had no flavour.

It pains me to write such a review, however we were so disappointed with the food that we are unlikely to return to this place, even though we’ve always heard...