Esteemed Northcote Wine Bar Vex Dining To Close – But It’s Not Bad News

Everyone hopes to go out on their own terms. It’s not always possible in the fickle world of hospitality, but it’s how things will go in May, when esteemed Northcote wine bar Vex Dining shuts its doors.

“Our lease is coming to an end, and it was about whether or not we wanted to do this particular thing for another five years or if we wanted to reinvest our energy into finding the next step,” says chef Florian Ribul, who owns Vex with floor manager Owen Probert. “We’re not shutting down Vex as a whole. It still exists, it’s just going back onto paper again for a little while.”

Vex opened at the end of 2020, building a steady following among the public and industry alike. Zareh chef Tom Sarafian is a fan, as is Melbourne Food & Wine Festival’s creative director Pat Nourse, who wrote yesterday, “I’ve loved every bite of every meal I’ve had at Vex, and every quip you’ve traded between those bites has been a delight. Thank you for the good times.”

The menu has always been informed by Ribul’s Austrian heritage. The stockbrot – a traditional Germanic bread wrapped around a skewer and cooked over fire – is something of a signature dish, alongside a classic panisse (aka chickpea chips) and a dessert of cacao cream, sour cherries and caramel. All of those will be available until the final service on May 2, alongside some old faves revived from the earlier days, like a warm beetroot terrine and a celeriac mille-feuille.

“We opened this up to gain the experience of operating our own venue, lucked upon an opportunity with very little backing and sort of built it slowly,” Ribul says. “I think we’d always hoped that we could expand on it a bit quicker, but the world has different plans, you know, quite a few things kind of got in the way. It’s just the beginning really, of what we see as taking another step next time we do it.”

Vex Dining will close on May 2, 2026.

Vex Dining
66-68 High St, Northcote
(03) 9191 7720

Hours
Tue–Fri 5pm–11pm
Sat 3pm–11pm

vexdining.com