Bar Elsie Makes You Want To Stay a While

After quietly charming Brunswick East locals with daytime spot The Coffee Bar, which opened in May this year, hospitality veterans Brett and Susie Pritchard have opened their next venue. Bar Elsie is a European-style bistro in the same building as the cafe, where you can settle in for a meal, a drink or something in between.

“It’s a bit of a Swiss Army knife,” says Brett. “You can sit at the bar with a glass of wine and a bowl of chips, have a full meal with family or just drop in for a cocktail and dessert. It’s whatever you want it to be when you walk in.” That flexibility, he says, is what European dining has always been about, not rigid courses or formality, but letting people eat and drink on their own terms.

The Pritchards were long-time fixtures in Sydney’s Redfern dining scene, behind venues including Redfern Continental, Arcadia Liquors and Ron’s Upstairs. They relocated to Melbourne in 2022 after Brett survived a cardiac arrest, taking a step back from ownership to work at Con Christopoulos’s European Group – Susie at Spring Street Grocer and Brett at City Wine Shop.

For the hospo couple, Bar Elsie feels like a culmination of everything they’ve learnt throughout their careers. It’s a return to running their own space and to the kind of hospitality they’ve always loved. “It’s the kind of place I’d want to hang out in,” says Brett. “Casual, uncomplicated, a little romantic and always welcoming.”

In the kitchen, head chef Edmee Driez, originally from Normandy, brings the same grounded approach that defined her time at Three Blue Ducks at Nimbo Fork Lodge in rural New South Wales. She cooks with French precision and a deep respect for produce, shaped by years of meeting farmers face-to-face and making everything from scratch. Her menu drifts between comfort and craft: charred hispi cabbage glossed with orange-and-fennel butter; clams with chorizo and cannellini beans; a 300-gram crumbed pork chop from North Carlton Meats, brined for a day and served with radicchio-and-celery remoulade; and coccoli – Italian fried bread you tear apart with your hands – served with whipped ricotta and cured meats.

To finish, there’s a mandarin frangipane tart with white chocolate and cumin ganache and Driez’s chocolate tart. The latter is made from her mother’s recipe; layered with salted butter caramel and hazelnut.

Behind the bar, the focus stays classic: European wines like a crisp muscadet from the Loire, alongside local drops such as a pinot gris from Tasmania’s Cradle Coast, local beers like Young Henrys Newtowner Pale Ale, and a list of timeless cocktails mixed without fuss. “The intention has always been to honour and celebrate the simplicity of classic cocktails,” says Brett. “They’re classics for a reason.”

Inside, Bar Elsie is all about intimacy. The restaurant has warm timber, deep green tones and a U-shaped “dream bar” Brett built himself.

By day, Susie runs the cafe, serving coffee and simple eats. Brett takes over at night to steer the bistro and bar. “It’s nice continuity,” he says. “You can grab a flat white in the morning, then come back later for a pork chop and a glass of red. It’s all part of the same story.”

Bar Elsie

396 Lygon Street, Brunswick East

No phone

Hours

Wed & Thu 4pm–11pm

Fri & Sat 4pm–midnight

Sun midday–8pm

@barelsie_

barelsie.com.au