Bar Louise
135 Enmore Road, Enmore
@barlouise_enmore
Bar Stanbuli on Enmore Road closed back in April after six years of operation doling out delicious Turkish food. Locals waited to see what would take over the space. The team from Porteno of Ben Milgate, Elvis Abrahanowicz and Joe Valore, who had partnered with Stanbuli, decided to go in themselves, teaming up with Michael Nicolian of Continental Deli fame. That’s a force to be reckoned with right there.
What has remained is the kitschy exterior, a nod to the old Marie Louise hair salon. And it’s joined a cast of favourites in Enmore, which has now got to be vying for the spot of Sydney’s top drinking destination suburb.
Michael Nicolian gave us the low-down on this bar, saying: “It’s a really fucking cool wine bar with a dining room upstairs. The food offering is fantastic. Traditional Spanish stuff with solid offerings in terms of bar snacks, then more substantial tapas with seafood, meat and vegetarian sections on the menu. For those who really want to throw down, there’s a chuleta (bone-in rib eye steak cooked over charcoal).”
“Drink wise there’s a focus on natural wine, with a big list put together by Melvin Haxaire who is an absolute legend from Continental and more recently P&V. There’s a lot of small family production stuff so there’s a bunch of wine that’s really difficult to track down due to rarity, high demand and cult followings in the wine world.” – Michael Nicolian
When it comes to imbibing these guys are nailing all the emerging trends with a focus on hard-to-find natural wines with a big push towards sherry and vermouth.
Nicolian says: “Drink wise there’s a focus on natural wine, with a big list put together by Melvin Haxaire who is an absolute legend from Continental and more recently P&V. There’s a lot of small family production stuff so there’s a bunch of wine that’s really difficult to track down due to rarity, high demand and cult followings in the wine world.” Sounds pretty special to us.
“Natural wine buffs will geek out hard and the sherry and vermouth offering is amazing!” Nicolian adds. “Again following the theme of rare, cult following , small production stuff with a couple of big hitters thrown in also.”
The cocktail list is small and concise. Nicolian says: There are cocktails but it’s not a massive focus, so everything is quality but not taking itself too seriously. Think Kalimotxo, tequila sunrise, sangria, vermouth and soda. We have martinis poured on the rocks and one drink that flexes our creative cocktail prowess being the coffee negroni which is a play on the old Aussie classic riff from about 15 years back, I reckon. We do ours with a milk punch for the vermouth and Campari stripping a lot of the colour and giving the drink some luxurious weight. We infuse the gin with the coffee, it’s a combination that just works really really well.”
Open 7 nights a week serving lunch on a Saturday and Sunday.