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Ah, Merimbula. Good to be back. I love your far horizons, I love your jewel sea. I love your oysters and bream-fishing and whale-watching opportunities, and I have a weird thing for the ham-and-pineapple pizza next to the mini-golf course.

But while the tourist town is a top, long-weekend destination, it has long needed more spots beyond the putt-putt joint and Dulcie’s Cottage to eat and drink in.

So when a new place starts trading in natural riesling, triple-digit reds and ’nduja mussels on toast ($10), it stands out when you Google “new bars Sapphire Coast”.

Five years ago, I would have claimed Bar Superette as a seismic discovery, up there with the first Snowy River cattlemen to stumble across payable gold. But Merimbula’s food has been on the up since one-hatted Valentina opened for local lobster and estuary views in 2020, and Sunny’s Kiosk started a cracking brunch service two years later.

Superette opened in the town centre last year, and while it doesn’t boast any waterside cachet, the bar and bottle shop sure are handsome. A narrow room is flanked by wildflowers, vinyl records and lots of spotted-gum timber that I’d like for shelves in my own house.

Co-owner Ryde Pennefather stokes hibachi coals, grills fish and chooses those records. Nineties hip-hop from A Tribe Called Quest is on heavy rotation, but you could hear Orville Peck or Diana Ross, too. If this all sounds very “natural wine, cool kids only, grown-ups not allowed”, please know that it’s not that kind of bar.

There are 20-somethings wearing ironic Crocs, sure, but there are also mums in gymwear popping by for the heroic wedge of cheesecake with Pedro Ximenez cream ($16), or longer catch-ups over a charcuterie plate ($33).

That spread of quality meats features LP’s chewy saucisson sec made in Marrickville, and wide ribbons of Martins Ridge Farm capocollo (also known as gabagool, the smallgood hit of the summer). Cheese and tinned fish bulk up the deli offering, while a longer bistro menu is the drawcard on weekends.

I was only expecting Merimbula-born Pennefather to throw up a smattering of snacks and local seafood, to be honest, not a full bistro carte of duck frites ($38), steak frites ($45) and crab and snapper pie ($32). Nice one. Should have booked an extra night at the Hillcrest motel.

That steak – draped in smoked anchovy butter and escorted by salty fries – occasionally steps across the line of over-seasoned, but it’s still a serviceable go-to for anyone keen to drop $345 on a bottle of Mount Mary 2017 Quintet, or $60 on a Little Frances 2022 Shiraz from Beechworth.

I wish I could tell you more about the snapper pie, but there were too many other beaut-sounding things to try: a calamari and guanciale skewer ($13), for instance, slick with lemon butter and a rough-and-ready salmoriglio, Sicily’s answer to chimichurri. (Guanciale, meanwhile, is one of the tastiest forms of cured pig’s cheek around.)

There’s a help-yourself fridge of acid-driven wines to pair with that nicely charcoaled squid, or a salad of poached Balmain bugs, snappy local beans and kohlrabi remoulade ($32). A liberal dash of fiery Espelette pepper takes the bugs from “pretty good” to “tell your friends”, and also enhances butterflied and grilled garfish in a pool of confident beurre blanc ($32).

A crumbed flathead sandwich ($15) with creamy sauce gribiche on white bread is pleasant enough, albeit forgettable, but the melting gruyere and ham hock croquette ($8), fixed to the plate with black pepper aioli, is one of the most flavour-forward snacks I’ve encountered all year. NB: it’s heavy. One per
person will do.

A rye whiskey Manhattan ($22) is deftly stirred down; gin martinis ($22) are cold and clean. The last thing I want to do the next day is drive the six hours back to Sydney.

The spread of ambitious, locally run wine bars is one of the best things to happen across regional NSW over the past five years.

“Maybe we should open our own country-town place like this,” I suggest to my wife, not for the first time. I said the same thing at Bar Que Sera in Sawtell, and Hey Rosey in Orange, and Stonefruit in Tenterfield, and Vecina in Newcastle (which isn’t really the country, but, you know).

The spread of ambitious, locally run wine bars is one of the best things to happen across regional NSW over the past five years, and there’s still so much opportunity for young operators out there.

It isn’t gentrification – the pubs and clubs and pizza shops will be fine – it’s more options beyond the same old supermarket chardonnays flogged off for $10 a glass. Bermagui, Armidale, Evans Head – you’re up next.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine