Mille Vini
Tyrekickers and Melbourne scenesters take note - Mille Vini has a damn fine menu and wine list
By Myffy Rigby
Mille Vini (or Milli Vanilli as it's become popularly known in them 'Hills) is brought to you from the people who brought you Pizza e Birra. The dark, moody room holds a wine bar-slash-restaurant specialising in Italian wine and snacks. It's got a very tapas-y feel with a big glass cabinet holding skewers of meat, zucchini flowers, rolled pork along with great big wheels and balls of cheese and legs of cured hams and sausages. It's loud, it's dark, it's pace-y, it's the antithesis of fine dining- in the good way.
Open about three weeks, the space is already cramming ‘em in like sardines. It's a completely different offering for Sydney and though it's got Sydney's slick, shiny fingerprints all over it, there's a distinctly Melbourne vibe about it. The Italian-heavy wine list offers plenty by the glass like the sweet, bulky primitivo that goes very well with a hunk of their bitey, crumbly parmesan and there's a also a fun, frisky pinot grigio if white's more your thing.
Pair your vino with the salumi misti - a section of meats including the fragrant, soft san Daniele prosciutto, the hardier bresaola (air dried beef) and the spongey mortadella (spiced pork sausage studded with cubes of pork fat).
The room's got just as much interest as the booze and snacks with black walls and dark furniture jumbled together for maximal seating making the whole thing almost a little too hard to navigate. But squeeze into your seat and try one of the thousand odd wines on the list.
Speaking of the list, this is a particularly attractive designed menu and is as much a joy to read as it is to order off. Created by local design young guns Studio Zeds, it's a leather bound book with an embossed cover and stunning inked illustrations of Bacchus getting down and dirty with the locals maidens, being drunk on the back of a donkey and all other types of shenanigans.
It's hard enough to get in this bar as it is and they don't take bookings so the best way to increase your chances of getting in for a drink is to head over earlier in the week and leave Saturday nights to the tire kickers.
Mille Vini 397 Crown St, Surry Hills 2010 (02 9357 3366)