Collingwood brewery Molly Rose reveals its chic side with new bar and restaurant
Craft brewery Molly Rose has expanded into a vacant building next door to its Collingwood digs to fulfil its ambition of better food paired with better beer.
A venue encompassing a 20-person chef's table, 30-seat bar and generous beer garden opens on Wednesday, March 8 beside the original Wellington Street brewery, with a sophisticated look that banishes beer barn stereotypes.
Founder Nic Sandery says all too often in drink pairings, beer is one drink sandwiched between many wines, despite the versatility offered by stouts through to IPAs.
"We wanted to highlight that versatility. The best way is to have a full kitchen and food paired beside our beer every day," Sandery says.
The chef's table, opening around June, will be the pinnacle of Sandery's dream, with a set menu of seven or eight courses by chef Ittichai Ngamtrairai, born in Thailand and trained in Melbourne establishments such as Sarti. With monthly beer releases, this menu and its pairings will change frequently.
For now, though, the Mitchell & Eades-designed bar will be the place to choose snacks such as kangaroo and 'nduja tartare matched with a raspberry-beetroot sour ale, or mains including char kway teow, part of the South-East Asian focus.
Stuffed chicken wings are set to be a signature, a nod to Sandery's upbringing in Darwin, delivered by Ngamtrairai with an Italianate twist: they're filled with salted cod mousse.
A contemporary cocktail list – think Coconut Boulevardiers or spritzes featuring beer – is also on offer.
A dark timber horseshoe bar with duck-egg blue walls, stained glass screens in chequerboard patterns and a microbrewery for limited-edition brews are part of the new space, while the original brewery bar (opened in 2019) is now a taproom for more hardcore beer fans.
The kitchen will take excess beer or grain from the brewery to make vinegar, hot sauce and other products, while sending fruit scraps back for use in sours and other beers.
Open Wed-Thu 4pm-10pm, Fri-Sat noon-1am, Sun noon-10pm.
279-285 Wellington Street, Collingwood, mollyrosebrewing.com
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Emma Breheny – Emma is Good Food's Melbourne-based reporter and co-editor of The Age Good Food Guide 2024.