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13.5/20

Bear’s Wine Bar

Updated ,first published

Bear’s Wine Bar in North Melbourne.
1 / 7Bear’s Wine Bar in North Melbourne.Photograph by Chris Hopkins
Potato cakes with creme fraiche and lumpfish caviar.
2 / 7Potato cakes with creme fraiche and lumpfish caviar.Penny Stephens
Bear’s Wine Bar is a warm bear hug of a venue.
3 / 7Bear’s Wine Bar is a warm bear hug of a venue.Penny Stephens
Prawn toast.
4 / 7Prawn toast.Penny Stephens
Pork belly dressed in ’nduja and honey.
5 / 7Pork belly dressed in ’nduja and honey.Penny Stephens
Bear’s Wine Bar is a glowing beacon on Queensberry Street.
6 / 7Bear’s Wine Bar is a glowing beacon on Queensberry Street.Penny Stephens
Kangaroo dimmies.
7 / 7Kangaroo dimmies.Penny Stephens
13.5/20

Bear’s Wine Bar

Contemporary$$

A snug wine bar with plenty to bring to the retro-nostalgia party.

The ye olde shopfront, warm lighting and red brick walls are inviting enough. But then you spy the potato cake, given a glow-up for the ages. A batter of rice and tapioca flours broadcasts startling crunch, the innards are creamy and rich, there’s creme fraiche and lumpfish caviar to swipe the thrice-cooked golden beast through.

Being a wine bar, “dinner” at Bears will be a series of snacky share plates - but they’re all bangers.Intersperse them with half-sized margaritas, “petit-gronis”, or perhaps a marsanne from an Aussie producer. Twice-cooked pork belly in its cubist abstract form is tossed in warming ’nduja and soothing honey, with plum and radicchio adding extra dimension.

Kangaroo may star in dim-sims and spring rolls, while prawn toast comes on house-baked focaccia. Find yourself yearning for simpler, kinder times? Pull up a stool, and don’t leave without a deep-fried Tim Tam.

Must-order dish: The potato cakes, of course.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

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