Le Pub & Bottle Shop is a contemporary take on the Aussie pub-slash-bottleshop, complete with a serious kitchen, a general licence and capacity for 100 people across the ground floor. It’s in the site that once housed Kirk’s, the pint-and-a-pie sibling of neighbouring Kirk’s Wine Bar. The European Group (French Saloon, Kafeneion, Siglo) has reworked the space, incorporated the next-door tenancy, and made it into something more ambitious.

Le Pub is the group’s most casual offering yet, but it’s far from an afterthought. The menu, which is written by hand and updated throughout the day, has mains capped at $30. And it’s packed full of nostalgia. There’s a pie of oxtail, snails and bone marrow, with the bone sticking up through the centre of the crust. Plus “modern” fish’n’chips made with market fish and kipfler potatoes in cafe de Paris butter. Schnitzel comes with green beans, potato cakes are served with lemon and salted cod on the side. And the dessert offering is ostensibly British, with bread-and-butter pudding, as well as stilton and oatcakes with quince.

On the drinks side, the venue functions as a bottle shop first. The wines are retail-priced and drinkable on-site with a $25 corkage fee. There’s no list – just easy-drinking bottles, plus a few big hitters, and a rotating cast of in-house collaborations. On the taps, you’ll find mostly local beers. The group’s Monopole wine label and Melbourne Gin Company collab gin are also being poured.