Brico Carlton North review 2024: Kara Monssen visits northern suburbs neighbourhood wine bar
This northside neighbourhood hang is responsible for some very delicious drinking — just make sure you try the owner’s ‘desert island wine’.
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Much like coffee and AFL, wine bars are a religion in this city.
The adult equivalent of brunch lets us worship clever snacks and drinks worth fizzing about.
Sake? Sure. Housemade kombucha? Please. Chianti made from grapes grown by a husband and wife on a hillside in Italy, picked under the stillness of moonlight? That’s what I’m talking about!
The food’s rarely bad, either. I’m sure anyone would confidently waltz into Carlton Wine Room, Marion, Embla, Etta or Bar Liberty knowing they’ll leave satisfied.
Though not all sipping and supping is equal in wine bar land.
I’ve been to places with phenomenal and inspired drinks, only to leave scratching around for a bag of chips at home. We eat well at others but come up short-changed on the wine list.
Some places do this better than others, and from the outset, Carlton North’s new neighbourhood hang Brico wears the drinks hat confidently.
If you’re in the wine circles, or live in the 3054, you would have heard the buzz around ex-Bar Liberty drinks man Josh Begbie leaving the Collingwood boozer for a run at something new.
With partner Robyn Nethercote and London mates Phil Bracey and Tegan Ellen Hendel, they opened Brico on Carlton North’s cutest corner, complete with green vine trellises and dreamy sunsets.
Inside she’s bare bones simple: terrazzo concrete floor, white walls, chestnut bar to one side, matching bench seats opposite, white linen skirting lining the windows. Out the back lives a courtyard with more vine action.
Chef Simon Ball Smith (formerly Public Wine Shop) keeps the food favourably snacky and vino-friendly, switching things up on the reg to lure the locals back.
Think rock oysters, charcuterie, crudité (raw veg) swiped in white taramasalata (cod roe dip), an anchovy dish. Though things change often here.
On the drinks front, Begbie shines. His energy, enthusiasm and quick wisdom on growers, vintage and processes is felt like a warm embrace restaurant-wide. Trying his ‘desert island wine’, a prickly, deep cherry coloured rose, doesn’t take much convincing.
Especially with cheese.
Marrickville’s Goldstreet Dairy ($26) is sizzled until bronzed and sticky in the pan, served with green melon smattered in chilli, lime and extra virgin – it’s easily one of the best things we ate all night. No complaints here.
I really wanted to burn my fingers eating those chickpea panisse wedges ($20, southern France chickpea cake) for that ‘hot from the fryer’ more-ish feeling, but was underwhelmed by how dry and tepid this was, saved by a squirt of lemon and frizzy parmesan.
Raw bonito ($20) was more uplifting, small squares of raw fish tumbled in a tomato oil and horseradish – an undeniable flavour bomb.
I thought the whole flounder ($42) would be filleted tableside, though our DIY attempts go off hitch-free thanks to quality produce and expert cooking.
Supple and sweet, smattered in salty agretti (Mediterranean sea succulent), it’s lovely with boiled spuds and garden salad.
I do worry some will leave hungry. You do need to order almost the entire menu to feed four ravenous mouths.
We tried all three desserts (my pick is the olive oil cake with rhubarb), and some of even us tapped back in for another final snack.
Though if you’re here for vino, that’ll be the least of your worries.
The well-built list is largely European with some solid local pours, while the cocktails are classic.
Brico is what neighbourhood dreams are made of – and where you’ll find me for a Sunday sesh.
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