L’Avant Cave will expand on Porcine’s “whole beast” approach in the kitchen while letting diners select wine from P&V’s extensive bottleshop collection.
After spending the past four years under the same roof on Oxford Street in Paddington, two of Sydney’s hottest hospitality venues are combining their talents to open a wine bar.
Chef’s hatted bistro Porcine, known for its “whole beast” approach to cooking meat, and its downstairs neighbour, P&V Merchants, a bottleshop selling natural and independent wines, will open L’Avant Cave this week in the rear courtyard of the terrace on the ground level.
The two have dabbled before, with Porcine supplying a terrine here and there to P&V, but the flatmates are now all-in on the joint venture. “We’re off the sofa and into the bedroom,” Porcine chef Nicholas Hill joked about the professional partnership.
L’Avant Cave opens on Friday, March 28, inspired by wine bars in France such as P&V co-owner Mike Bennie’s Parisian favourite, L’Avant Comptoir, in the 6th arrondissement. Hill has his own Parisian influences, including wine bars with great food but “no knives and forks” – inspiration for the new venue’s snack-driven menu.
P&V has operated a wine bar – to differing degrees – out of the wine shop and cute courtyard behind it. “When P&V first opened, it was just cheese and charcuterie,” Hill said of its food menu. Then there were outside chef collaborations, “and we always did bits and bobs”.
L’Avant Cave’s opening menu taps the French wine bar pitch. Pigeon liver Melba toast is on a line-up that sweeps garlic snails, pork and Armagnac pâte with duck fat toast, and trout rillettes.
“It’s a wine bar, but we want people to be able to eat with one hand,” Bennie said of the food brief that he and business partner Louise Dowling gave the Porcine team. Hill obliged with a croque monsieur on toasted brioche.
The collaboration will also expand Porcine’s “whole beast” approach in the kitchen. Hill explained they will cook different cuts of pork upstairs in the restaurant and use the neck and shoulder for the terrine at L’Avant Cave.
In a week when Potts Point piano bar The Hook announced it would close its doors on Sunday, March 23, Bennie said the rapidly expanding Sydney bar market is not only competitive, but experiencing the sort of cost-of-living pressures felt across the economy. People are still going out, but average spend is down about 30 per cent, Bennie said.
“I think people want a distinct experience. There have been a lot of bars emerging,” he said. “You have to have a ‘differential advantage’, to use [business] gobbledygook.”
P&V’s competitive advantage is its extensive range of wines, and its bottleshop-wine bar pitch, where you can grab a bottle of wine from the shelf or fridge.
Diners do the same at Porcine. Hill joked that his customers have to pass through the P&V “gift shop” before they have a chance to look at the Porcine wine list.
While corkage may seem a tad steep ($25 a bottle at P&V and L’Avant Cave, and $35 a bottle at Porcine), Bennie said the system offered relatively good value.
“A bottle of wine you’d normally pay around $200 for in a restaurant is only $125 at L’Avant Cave,” Bennie said.
“It’s our first full collaboration with Porcine. We want to sophisticate it up a bit – we think that’s what Paddington’s about.”
Open dinner Thu; lunch and dinner Fri-Sun
268 Oxford Street, Paddington, @lavant_cave
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