The Hot List is the definitive guide to Melbourne’s most essential food and drink experiences, updated weekly. Learn more.

This week’s Hot List activity

• Added: Suze
• Most trending restaurant: Soi 38
• Most trending cafe: A1 Bakery
• Most trending bar: Purple Pit

A wine bar brave enough to follow all the rules

If you had a friend from out of town visiting Melbourne for a few days, where would you send them? That’s a question we kept asking ourselves when we were creating The Hot List. We wanted the list to be filled with the venues, old and new, that make Melbourne what it is.

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Right now the answer to that question is Suze, in Fitzroy North. That’s why we’re adding it this week.

We’re lucky enough to be completely spoiled on the wine bar front in Melbourne. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of great wine bars around town. And they all have cheery service, great drinks lists and food good enough to make restaurants nervous.

So how do you stand out in such a crowded (and excellent) field? In Suze’s case, it’s actually by blending in and really taking the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to heart. It’s a Melbourne wine bar whose goal is to just be the best Melbourne wine bar it can be.

So yes, the wine list is half European and half Australian, and some bottles are natural while others are more traditional. And yep, that’s a focaccia you’ll spy on chef and co-owner Steve Harry’s menu, and you’d better believe it’s best enjoyed with some house-made ricotta to dip it in. Uh-huh, you can build your own meal with snacks and sides such as chicken liver parfait or marinated bullhorn peppers, or split a few larger things like a whole flounder or a pork chop among yourselves. Pasta dishes? Of course there are. And they’re great.

Harry and his partner and co-owner Giulia Giorgetti, who runs the floor, have worked in prominent roles at some of Melbourne’s best wine bars and wine-forward restaurants. Their shared CV includes time at Napier Quarter, Cumulus, Auterra, Marion and Cutler. They know what they’re doing.

And that deep trove of experience translates onto the plate and into the glass. Go for a night out at Suze and you’ll be in for a polished, confident and fun experience. Suze isn’t reinventing the wheel and it’s not tossing out the rulebook. Instead it’s being almost subversive by playing it straight. To pull that off and feel novel, you have to do everything really well. And Suze does.

Just when you thought Melbourne didn’t have room for any more wine bars, one like Suze comes in to remind us all why we fell in love with wine bars to begin with.

www.broadsheet.com.au/hotlist/melbourne

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