Bar Superette – Introduction

One of the most enjoyable things associated with importing natural wines into Australia relates to the people we meet and the places we visit as part of our work.

Over the many years that we have been importing natural wines we have travelled the world looking for suitable wines for our business and meeting people with a similar world view and almost always sharing one degree of separation of people we know or wines we love.

Over the past two or three years our ability to roam freely has been restricted due to illness, however we have recently made good progress with overcoming these illnesses and decided to hit the road to test how robust we are before we head overseas again.

We decided to do a road trip up the east coast of Australia as far as Sydney, so that we could test whether we are strong enough to return to France where we always drive between 5000 and 10000 kilometres visiting our producers in that country.

After stocking up on cheese from Europe (for example, Swiss Challerhocker) and hummus from the talented Tom Sarafian at the venerable Maker and Monger in the Prahran Market in Melbourne, we headed east then north with our goal being the seaside town of Merimbula in southern NSW.

We had been sending wine to two venues in that town, therefore were looking forward to meeting the people who were selling the wines we were importing.

The first was Bar Superette which was quite a surprise as it reminded us both in form and function of other places we had visited on our various journeys around Australia and beyond. It is both a bar serving a well-chosen selection of natural wines and delicious food and a bottle shop and “epicerie” selling well-selected tins of food and the compulsory Spanish potato chips amongst other delicious produce.

Walking into this well-managed Superette bar reminded us of other similar places such as RVLT in Singapore, Lucinda in Hobart, LOC in Adelaide, Public Wine Shop in Fitzroy North, 10 William St in Sydney or Bistrot des Claquets in Arbois.

On the left as you walk in to Bar Superette you can peruse the available wines that line the wall, marked with their prices. Further back you can also peruse the deli items consisting of some very, very good tines of sardines and other delicious condiments.

On the right side there is a relatively long bar with tables in front. At the back is the small kitchen featuring a Japanese-style charcoal grill where much of the cooking is carried out.

And so, to our dinner.

In the short time we had been in Merimbula we had become entranced by the oysters, which are the Sydney Rock Oysters. They are very fresh (we can see the oyster pens out the window of our accommodation), very “meaty” and very delicious. We ordered six which arrived promptly and they were perfect, with the developed flavour that we had enjoyed earlier in the day.

We then moved on to a prawn sandwich, which contained very fresh lettuce and equally fresh prawns.

Another very tasty dish was potato hash browns with creme fraiche, trout roe and horseradish. These were presented crisply fried with a bowl of the creme fraiche and trout roe on the side to dip them into. As you can see from the photo below they were also liberally sprinkled with the all-important salt

Next we thoroughly enjoyed white asparagus that had been grilled over the charcoal. Very delicious.

We finished with a very tasty crème brûlée with a perfect, thin crust which rounded out the meal very nicely.

We accompanied these dishes with a Luke Lambert Shiraz Rosé which seemed to match each dish!

We should also mention the music here, which we thoroughly enjoyed. On the night we were there it focussed very much on some of our favourite jazz and rock musicians, including John Mayall’s Turning Point, as well as highly influential black musician Curtis Mayfield, for example.

This is a very professionally run establishment with an eclectic array of wines pointing towards the future.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Merimbula and our time at Bar Superette!

You can see more photos of this venue on their Instagram site here.