Bar Lourinhã Celebrates 20 Remarkably Consistent Years in Melbourne

Melbourne has a soft spot for a hospitality institution. We like the places that become part of the city’s muscle memory: the bars where people know what they order, the restaurants that survive dining trends without chasing them, the rooms that feel familiar even if you haven’t been for a while.

Bar Lourinhã sits firmly in this category. Opened in 2006 by married couple Matt McConnell and Jo Gamvros, the Little Collins Street restaurant has spent two decades doing exactly what it set out to do: serve Iberian-inflected food at a long bar, with good wine and the kind of hospitality that makes you feel like you’ve come home.

The inspiration came from an extensive trip through Spain and Portugal in the ’90s, though the groundwork had been laid earlier. Before opening Bar Lourinhã, the couple spent several years living and working in Queensland, where chef McConnell became hooked on produce coming directly from fishermen and farmers. When he and Gamvros reached Spain, the idea started to crystallise. “Within about two weeks of being in Spain, we knew exactly what we wanted,” McConnell says. “A nice, long bar, beautiful food, simply cooked, and really warm hospitality.”

McConnell wrote constantly while travelling: dishes, ingredients, structures, ideas. One recipe for spiced chickpeas and spinach, written in a small apartment in Seville on a 42-degree day, is still on the menu. The name came later, on a bus from Lisbon to Peniche, when they passed through the Portuguese town of Lourinhã. “It didn’t scream ‘Spain’, and it didn’t scream ‘Portugal’,” says McConnell. “We never wanted to be pigeonholed as one or the other.”

That remains the point. Bar Lourinhã has never been a strictly Spanish restaurant or a strictly Portuguese one. The menu starts from the Iberian Peninsula, then moves more broadly through the Mediterranean, with smaller bites in the style of Spanish tapas and Portuguese petiscos before larger raciones designed to share. Some dishes have stayed, returned or been gently tweaked over the years, while specials work as a seasonal playground. Puntarellemight appear when it comes through the market. A call from the fish supplier about fresh mullet roe can lead to enough house-made bottarga for the year. The kitchen works with organic growers and takes pleasure in the small, fleeting things the seasons provide.

This is part of Bar Lourinhã’s appeal. It understands that food isn’t just about what you’re eating, but how you’re eating it. A drink and a nibble. A few plates for the table. Dinner at the bar. Something before the theatre. Something after. The restaurant was no-bookings when it opened, with accessibility being key. At the time, Melbourne was ready for it. The city had good bars and established restaurants, but McConnell felt there was room for high-quality food in a relaxed bar setting. Little Collins Street was quieter then, especially at that end of town. Bar Lourinhã “slotted into” number 37 and grew steadily.

Two decades later, the city has changed around it, through booms, slumps, a pandemic and plenty of hand-wringing about the CBD. The restaurant has stayed remarkably consistent throughout. “What we put on the plate yesterday will be exactly the same today, it’ll be exactly the same tomorrow,” says McConnell, whose brother Andrew runs Gimlet and Cumulus Inc at the same end of town.

That might sound simple until you think about doing it for 20 years. Melbourne diners are loyal to the places that keep showing up for them, but they aren’t sentimental enough to forgive a restaurant that coasts. Consistency only works when the whole team is on board: the same care, the same welcome, the same confidence on the plate, repeated service after service. It helps that McConnell and Gamvros are still there, week in, week out.

Still, McConnell talks about service as a team effort that starts with the kitchen hands and runs through to the floor. “I don’t think you can replace that real joy of hospitality when you see the look on someone’s face when they’ve tasted a grape variety that they’ve never heard of before, or tasted some food or a product that they’d never seen or heard of, or been adventurous enough to try, and they go, ‘Wow, that’s just opened up so much more to me.’”

Bar Lourinhã
37 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
(03) 9663 7890

Hours
Tue to Thu 12pm–11pm
Fri & Sat 12pm–12am
Sun & Mon 12pm–9pm

barlourinha.com.au