Melbourne has plenty of neighbourhood wine bars, but not many have Arnold’s creativity and heart.
13.5/20
Contemporary$$
The most important ingredient in a certain type of restaurant is heart. I’m not talking about the big, brash group-owned places, though I certainly wouldn’t mind a little more heart here and there in those joints. But when you open a small storefront in a mostly residential neighbourhood that’s out of the way for anyone who doesn’t live there, then heart is essential.
Heart is the attribute that Arnold’s, the wine bar and restaurant across the street from the Kensington train station, has in spades.
Opened in September of last year, Arnold’s is the work of chef Scott Eddington and his partner Lauren Chibert. Eddington has worked in Sydney venues including Automata and A1 Canteen, and in North Melbourne at Manze.
The room feels cosy and thrums with the kind of intimate warmth made from friendly chatter, a bar leading to a small open kitchen, eclectic artwork, and a record collection being put to good use on two turntables. The chef and his mum made a tile mosaic on the back patio, based on a painting by the family patriarch (also the restaurant’s namesake). If that’s not heart, I don’t know what is.
On the surface, Arnold’s looks very familiar – the classic Melbourne neighbourhood wine bar. But peek under the cover and you’ll find some distinctive elements that make it an exciting addition to Kensington and to the city.
The drinks list isn’t particularly long, but what’s there is varied and considered. There’s a mezcal collection that would intrigue anyone with that particular penchant, from the curious to the obsessed, and a great cocktail made with mezcal, an acid-forward pineapple and mango shrub, and blue curacao that takes the trope of the blue drink and gives it some gravitas.
Wines are predominantly from underrepresented regions, from Gippsland (Eddington’s homeland) to Albania. The staff is super keen to get geeky with you if that’s what you want, or to just recommend something that might suit your tastes.
This is a bar where I left feeling that I’d actually learnt something, which is a rarity – not because I know so much, but because learning at a bar usually takes the form of someone pretentious droning on, and I zone out. Here it was all just good banter.
The other unusual thing about Arnold’s is the Mexican and South American bent to the food. This is sometimes applied to ingredients you would commonly find on a Euro-influenced wine bar.
There’s mortadella on the menu, but here it’s served as “fajitas” – fried until crispy and then topped with a heaping of sauteed onions and capsicum. There’s a beef tartare, made with wagyu, but it’s dressed with pineapple and chorizo and branded as carne apache, the Mexican beef version of ceviche.
I applaud the chef’s creativity, and again, there is just no question that he’s cooking with heart. But I do think there are places where the menu could use some restraint. The wagyu carne apache doesn’t really need the addition of chorizo – the extra spice and salt distracts from the cool, almost creamy luxury of the high-quality beef.
There’s a beautifully cooked whole Goulburn River trout on the menu right now, its skin crisped perfectly, its flesh soft and supple. But the skin and fried aromatic herbs atop it are so aggressively salted, I struggled to taste the nuance of the fish or the lovely peach and fermented chilli sauce it sat in.
And I’m all for cornbread taking over on Melbourne menus – Arnolds’ is the second one I’ve seen recently – but the version here is far too dry.
I found myself most enjoying the kitchen’s simplest dishes: a plate of fried heirloom peppers, with a dipping sauce of deeply plummy chamoy, made from pickled fruit; a sweet potato served with labne.
That said, I have no doubt in Eddington’s talent, and his passion is evident. Arnold’s is already a fantastic place to go for a drink and a nibble, and it has enough heart to more than make up for the occasional over-exuberance of the kitchen when it comes to spicing and salting. My money is on it becoming a long-time and well-loved institution.
The low-down
Atmosphere: Warm and cosy neighbourhood wine bar
Go-to dishes: Oaxaca blast cocktail ($24); mortadella fajitas ($18); fried heirloom peppers ($16)
Drinks: Great selection of mezcals and Australian whisky; fun and eclectic wine list
Cost: About $110 for two, excluding drinks
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