Welcome to the bar that has kept everyone on Toorak Road guessing. It’s been five years in the making, but what was the bike shop next door to France-Soir is now a wood-panelled, softly lit wonderland of wine and cocktails. It’s very much in the France-Soir mode, but, in the same way that Bar Olo isn’t merely a holding bar for Scopri but an expansion of the brand, it’s not just another room of France-Soir – it’s a new proposition. Same accent, but with something fresh to say. And if you like wine, you’re going to want to listen.
Unlike France-Soir, Splendide gives almost nothing away from the street, with curtains drawn across the window and a discreet entrance. Push through the heavy drapes and, once your eyes adjust to the dark, you’ll find tasselled club chairs down the left-hand wall and a long bar slithering down the right. A glass case of African masks sits down the far end of the room, and the occasional potted palm breaks up the space. A Métro sign frames a mirror over the back bar. It’s not the rammed hustle and buzz of France-Soir, but it’s very much in the classic mode, and is built for conversation and comfort. Owner Jean-Paul Prunetti designed the place himself and it feels personal, it feels French, and it feels like a great place to drink some wine. Let’s pull up a glass.
The bar staff shake and stir Sidecars, Martinis, Negronis and other cocktail standards, and there’s Kronenbourg on tap, but you’re really here for the grape. The chief attraction with the Splendide list is that it offers more choices by the glass than France-Soir, and is often about the pleasures of the road less taken, even as it offers plenty that is reassuringly familiar.
In Champagne that means we’re talking non-vintage options from Pol Roger and organic pioneers Bérèche & Fils brut reserve, plus 2012 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne blanc de blancs, as well as a Rolet crémant from the Jura. Whites run to eight cuvées, all French barring a couple of fine German rieslings. In Chablis they’re pouring Jean Defaix and a premier cru from Domaine Servin, and in the (very slightly) wider world of chardonnay there’s also a Bourgogne from Marc Rougeot-Dupin made with fruit from Côte de Beaune and Côte Chalonnaise. A pinot gris from Alsace producer Paul Blanck, a Domaine Guiberteau chenin, and Clément and Florian Berthier’s L’Instant sauv blanc from the Loire round out the blancs.
In the pink, the deeply drinkable Talweg Tavel from cult favourite L’Anglore is on by the glass among two other rosés, including a VDF from maverick Roussillon winemakers Danjou-Banessy.
Red wine? Yes indeed. It’s not solely cab franc, gamay and pinot on pour, but that’s clearly the strong suit, with organic Beaujolais from Foillard acolyte Rémi Dufaitre and premier cru Mercurey from Château de Chamirey among the starting line-up. Down the heftier end of the red spectrum there’s Cahors from Cosse et Maisonneuve, a Raspail-Ay Gigondas and a Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Château de Nalys.
As the glasses go, so, mostly, do the bottles: a tight focus on France, and when excursions are made to “reste du monde”, it’s for celebrated minimal-intervention producers such as Gut Oggau and Cornelissen. And if you’re still somehow left looking for something more, you can always ask for the full France-Soir wine phonebook from next door. In either case, there’s a good chance your night will end with a Calvados – Julien Frémont reserve, for instance.
As one wine enthusiast was heard to remark on the premises, “It’s a list of renowned producers and not-so-well-known vignerons who are on their way – a list that has unicorns and plain delicious, well-made wines in equal measure, with the classic and the conservative alongside options for drinkers who like it a little edgy, at fair prices”.
Food? Prunetti and the team have opted to not run a full hot kitchen in the new space, so the menu of grignotages – call it grazing plates – is all things served cold. We’re talking fancy imported potato chips, Spanish anchovies, oysters with or without raspberry vinaigrette, tapenade, wheels of gravlax and crème fraîche roulade, tuna tataki with piperade, bresaola, and ribbons of “jambon ibérique”. If you want to dial up the France-Soir feels, hit the duck foie, the tartare de bouef on cos and call for some quenelles of duck rillettes. There’s caviar there if you need it, and no shortage of Comté.
At the moment they’re playing things extremely low-key, not really advertising the bar’s existence. When you enter, you’re asked to put stickers over your phone cameras like you’re in some kind of Burgundy Berghain (hence the lack of pictures) but once you’re past that, it’s essentially a very attractive place to share a good bottle, and perhaps a Toorak Road apple juice or two. It is, in a word, splendid.
Le Splendide, 9 Toorak Rd, South Yarra, (03) 9866 8569, france-soir.com.au
By Pat Nourse