Brand new bars

The last few weeks have seen a rich crop of new bars pop­ping up in Te Aro like hos­pit­able mush­rooms. Here’s a quick round-up of the most not­able.

Wel­ling­ton’s had no short­age of new beer bars over the last few years, but it’s been a while since we’ve had a prop­er wine bar. Noble Rot fills that gap with great élan, as well as filling the phys­ic­al gap sadly left by the rather pecu­li­ar demise of Duke Carvell’s.

As expec­ted, they offer a wide selec­tion of wines by the glass, in both 100ml and 150ml servings to facil­it­ate explor­a­tion or quaff­ing respect­ively. While bottle prices rise into the four fig­ures, they have a sur­pris­ingly good num­ber of bottles in the forty­ish dol­lar brack­et, which is bet­ter than many mid-range restaurant/bars at the moment. The food menu is set to expand soon, but even their small cur­rent offer­ing is excel­lent, espe­cially if you hap­pen to like saus­ages (which even crop up in the fish dish). The theme seems to be south­ern European com­fort food, includ­ing a hearty duck cas­soulet that seems per­fect for the com­ing winter.

More changes are afoot in Swan Lane, with Al Brown’s long-awaited Wel­ling­ton branch of Best Ugly Bagels set to open next month in the spaces that once housed both the Met Shop and that weird second-hand shop that nev­er seemed to be open. The whole build­ing is in need of sig­ni­fic­ant struc­tur­al work, which is why Floriditas will tem­por­ar­ily close from the 27th of June until early August. Once that’s all fin­ished, Swan Lane is set to be live­li­er (though in a rather gentri­fied way) than it has been in a long time.

Fur­ther up Cuba St, Five and Dime has just opened in the former Phoen­i­cian Falafel space sand­wiched between Heav­en Pizza and Suit Gal­lery. Run by the people behind Five Bor­oughs, it’s a lively little joint that aims to be some­thing between a sleek diner and a cas­u­al bar.

It has touches derived from both Five Bor­oughs (the loud hip hop soundtrack) and its former life, with Lebanese ingredi­ents fea­tured heav­ily in what would be an oth­er­wise stand­ard lunch menu (“Lebanese toasties” with lab­neh and za’atar; makanek sand­wiches, a falafel salad). The even­ing menu show­cases raw dishes such as sashimi and tartares, matched to brief but intriguing wine and cock­tail lists, though the beer selec­tion leaves a lot to be desired.

Down on the corner of Dix­on and Eva streets, Eva Beva has opened up on the ground floor of new­ish nightclub Fat Angel. If you can get past the cringe­worthy name and the unsightly smoking cages (though it was per­haps too much to wish for any­thing classy on the former Hope Bros site), the interi­or is rel­at­ively wel­com­ing, like a spa­cious, fest­ive barn.

It has the sort of menu that would have been excit­ing five years ago (you know the drill: south­ern fried chick­en, spare ribs, brisket with refried beans) but that now is about as fresh as last week’s KFC leftovers. It has a ser­vice­able wine and beer selec­tion for a pub, with a cock­tail list heavy on sweet ingredi­ents.

If Fat Angel is aim­ing to fill the night­life gap left by Sand­wiches, some have hoped that Car­oline might be the new Mighty Mighty. Oh, who are we kid­ding, noth­ing can replace Mighty, and but this off­shoot of Meow (the stacks of vin­tage radi­os give the con­nec­tion away) is a wel­come addi­tion to both the live music cir­cuit and din­ing options in a part of town not known for live­li­ness after dark.

It makes the most of an odd, curved floor plan, bring­ing sur­pris­ing amounts of light into what was once a weird post­mod­ern­ist Itali­an res­taur­ant upstairs in the Dukes Arcade. The menu is per­haps pre­dict­ably bur­ger-cent­ric, but a little more Kiwiana than Amer­ic­ana (lots of pine­apple). Approach­able craft beers dom­in­ate the drinks offer­ing, but it’s inter­est­ing that they’ve made a play for the day­time mar­ket as well as being a bar and music ven­ue. The nearby office lunch mar­ket seems awash with sand­wich shops and sushi joints, but this cer­tainly adds a refresh­ingly un-cor­por­ate option.