Review: Sydney needs more not-quite-a-restaurant venues just like this (2024)

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Here are three things that are nice to hear when you’re sitting down for lunch: “Our oysters are from Boomer Bay in Tasmania”; “We can open any wine you like from the bottle shop”; and “There’s also a kumquat frangipane tart that’s just come out of the oven”. Within minutes of arriving at P&V Wine + Liquor Merchants, I knew I’d be spending a lot more time in its courtyard this summer.

The casual, brick-walled spot out the back of P&V’s Paddington retail shop has been serving charcuterie and natural wine under a shade sail since early 2021, and it’s always been a reliable, back-pocket option for drinks near the top end of Oxford Street. When chef Zac Goddard took over the kitchen in March, however, P&V became a smart destination for lunch or dinner in its own right.

Some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Hang on, doesn’t Porcine also serve pork chops and pâté en croûte from the same address?” Yes, it does, but that’s a different dining room upstairs.

The wildflower-lined courtyard spruiks a briefer, snackier menu, plus the opportunity to rock up whenever you like and just sit on a glass of gamay. Not quite a restaurant, but more than a bar.

Goddard previously cooked at Adelaide’s Summertown Aristologist, where the menu was guided by whatever was tasting good from the kitchen farm, local fishers or shelves of bubbling lacto-ferments.

It’s a similar, rustic pitch at P&V; pickled vegetables ($12) with kefir butter and soft hunks of sourdough ($7) take me straight back to long, lazy lunches in the Adelaide Hills. You could have a grand afternoon with that bread, tangy butter and a few pickled green tomatoes alone.

P&V is invariably teeming with drinkers and diners in their late 20s, but that doesn’t mean there’s a ‘too cool for school’ vibe.

Maybe a glass of the “boujee white”, too, which could be a crisp Rippon Mature Vine 2020 Riesling ($19) from New Zealand’s Central Otago. More by-the-glass lists should be written like this: “fun fizz”, “pink party drink”, “friendly red” – descriptions that tell most drinkers all they care to know.

Staff will go into greater detail about the wine if you ask, however. What’s the day’s “rare bird”? It’s a $25 pour of supple Domaine Marc Delienne Abbaye Road 2021 Beaujolais that’s all “undergrowth and brambles”.

Does it go with the silky ricotta ravioli in a clear tomato broth ($27) that tastes like a holiday in Campania? Not really, but it doesn’t matter. P&V co-founders Mike Bennie and Louise Dowling threw out the rule book on how wine should be enjoyed years ago. You do you.

The playlist is equally freewheeling: the Zombies, Notorious B.I.G., Harry Belafonte. I can’t tell you another time when I’ve sliced into a leek and mushroom-filled buckwheat crepe ($21) while listening to Deep Purple’s Space Truckin’. Served under a blizzard of comte, it was a terrific crepe, too – albeit removed from the menu three days later, replaced by a vibrant-green clutch of chilled asparagus with herby, egg-forward sauce gribiche ($21).

Zucchini flowers, $12 each and stuffed with a scallop and ’nduja mousse of mighty flavour, are a more regular fixture. You’ll probably want at least two.

Baby snapper ($26) – soft and sweet in a spindly, pale-ale batter that’s closer to tempura than your standard fish-and-chip shop gear – is another semi-permanent item. It’s also the kind of deep-fried crowd-pleaser that has our table stalking the retail fridges for a racy, untamed chardonnay.

Corkage is $25 if you pick a bottle from the shop and, given the price hike on booze in restaurants, a lot of value can be unlocked by doing so.

A bowl of supremely smooth chocolate sorbet with brandied cherries is also well priced at $10 and makes me wonder why Black Forest cake still hasn’t made a comeback.

The tart is a pricier $20, but you’re getting a king-sized slice of frangipane loaded with honey-preserved kumquats and topped with luscious cream. Certainly worth splitting with a mate.

P&V is invariably teeming with drinkers and diners in their late 20s, but that doesn’t mean there’s a “too cool for school” vibe of the kind you might find at some wine bars with one-hat ambitions.

Staff are happy to guide anyone who doesn’t speak sommelier through the booze, and if you just want a “normal” beer, thanks, that option’s there, too.

Sure, the napkins are paper and one of our tables is rickety, but prices don’t get much more competitive for such forthright cooking and wine. Sydney needs more not-quite-a-restaurant venues just like this.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine

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