North Melbourne’s Courthouse Hotel, a popular culinary destination in the early 2000s, reopens today with a renewed focus on food and a handsome restoration of its art deco features. The team behind Naughtons in Parkville – Ryan Moses, Rusty Sturrock, and Ryan and Laura Berry – bought the pub a year ago, describing it as being in a sorry state. It had hardly traded since March 2020.

In its heyday, the pub was awarded two hats by The Age Good Food Guide and its kitchen saw chefs such as Zoe Birch (Greasy Zoes) and Stephen Burke (ex-Garden State) serve dishes such as roasted partridge or stilton souffle.

It was these memories that drove Moses and his partners to take over the pub, wanting to restore it to what it once was. They’ve signed a 30-year lease.

The new Courthouse menu is channelling some of its past Euro polish, with head chef Sturrock also weaving in British gastropub traditions he and his partners picked up while working in the UK’s pubs previously.

Two hand pumps behind the bar will pour English-style ales from Two Metre Tall and Love Shack Brewing. A Lancashire hot pot – lamb shoulder topped with potato discs and, here, Brussels sprouts – is one of several British pub favourites offered as specials.

Elsewhere, kangaroo carpaccio and a wiener schnitzel join dishes from the parrilla grill, such as whole John dory dressed with lemon and oregano. Pork and fennel sausages are made in-house, as is focaccia and pasta, perhaps pappardelle with mushrooms.

The wood panelling in the corner front bar has been hand-sanded but it’s otherwise unchanged, while upstairs is a new dining room and two boutique hotel rooms, which will all open in June. There are also two dining rooms downstairs.

In the refurbishment (by architect Alana Cooke, who also renovated Naughtons), earthy reds, grey-greens and custom spotted gum furniture all play to the hotel’s history, built in the 1850s, with an art deco blond brick facade added in the 1940s.

Open Mon-Wed 3pm-late, Thu-Sun noon-late from May 19.

86-90 Errol Street, North Melbourne, thecourthousenm.com.au