It’s Saturday evening in East Melbourne, and the floodlights of the 'G shine bright through the front windows of Hemingway’s Wine Room as the well-heeled East Melbourne crowd enjoy sipping their red from bulbous wine glasses.
Here, warm and personal service greets you in from the cold straight away. Even on a bustling weekend evening, the waitstaff is calm and collected, leaning on tables to chat with regulars and ensuring every glass is full with the un-rushed self-assurance of life-long professionals. In an industry struggling to rebuild its workforce, it’s lovely to find the kind of casual grace in service usually reserved for the city’s top tier in a neighbourhood joint.
Hemingway’s consists of two small rooms on either side of a hallway, one a dedicated dining room and the other a more casual space that includes the bar and kitchen. They’ve done their best with the unflattering office building architecture, and the deep red banquettes, marble bar tables and bookshelves filled with wine bottles and old books do a lot to soften the space.
The list of wines by the glass is short and to the point, focusing mostly on classic quality like a Turk Kremser Wineberge Gruner from Austria that’s all toasted Tip-Top with butter and apricot jam on the nose and a lovely mid-weight palate with none of the overdone perfume this variety can have. It would be easy for a place like this to stick with unadventurous chardonnay, shiraz and merlot, and those things are here if you want them, but they obviously care about their wines enough to find the bottles that will keep themselves entertained without scaring off the regulars. And of course, you can get Pol Roger NV Champagne by the glass, because Hemingway would have it no other way.
If you’re here for dinner, there’s a full menu that includes French bistro classics like beef tartare and duck a l’orange, all presented with '90s Michelin star flair on over-large plates. It’s set up as a classic entree-main-sides-dessert style, but if you score a seat on the bar side, you’re welcome to order as much or as little as you like. House smoked salmon is light in flavour and served tooth-satisfying thick-cut with pickled cucumber slices and a sort of French reverse sushi of more salmon wrapped in nori and fried in a crisp pastry shell. It makes for a classy and delicious few bites alongside the aforementioned Gruner.
The cocktail list is a work of love, each drink accompanied by a little story relating it to the venue’s namesake, Ernest Hemingway. The ‘Papa Claro’ bills itself as a combination between a negroni and daiquiri. Sweet and citrusy, it tastes like a negroni that wants to be a grapefruit soft drink, but with enough pithy dryness to keep you coming back for another sip.
Hemingway’s wine room isn’t blowing any minds, but it’s hard to fault a place where the service is excellent, the wines are tasty and the food cuts no corners despite the labour intensity and skill required to execute classic French well. If East Melbourne is your ‘hood, or you find yourself passing through (especially mid-week or at lunchtime when some great deals can be had on pre-fixed menus), stop by Hemingway’s Wine Room and you’ll leave happier than when you arrived.
