Wine bar downstairs, restaurant up, this spot from gun sommeliers is revitalising Stanley St

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They’re cute, all these hearts. There’s one scrawled on the mirrored wall, alongside the by-the-glass list. Our bill is held down by a heart-shaped stone – “Don’t eat it!” A heart is the website’s logo, and there’s another swinging in the breeze blowing up Stanley Street, the words Claret Club bang in the centre.

This is a subversion, a symbol of love and inclusivity surrounding words that, in the wine world, typically mean the opposite. Claret clubs are a British thing, members-only societies that are partly about drinking Bordeaux but are more about exclusivity and elitism. Ruddy faces, backslapping, boys-only stuff.

Bridget Raffal is done with this. The former sommelier at three-hatted Sixpenny, Raffal quit fine-dining in 2020 to buy into Where’s Nick (whereabouts still to be determined), a snack-led Marrickville wine bar with affordable by-the-glass options increasingly drawn from a network of groundbreaking Australian and international winemakers.

In doing so, she brought the kinds of wines usually reserved for haute restaurants to the people. On the side, as president of Women and Revolution, she spearheads a movement dedicated to breaking down the gender bias in wine and hospitality. Just a small project.

Everyone’s welcome, say the hearts. But they mean something else: Raffal’s birthday is on Valentine’s Day (objectively the fourth-worst day of the year to be born) and she’s been collecting heart-shaped stones all her life. They’re one of many personal touches in a venue that’s by definition a labour of love.

Raffal and her sommelier partner, Harry Hunter (ex-Bentley and Dinner By Heston), mucked in to refresh the faded terrace. They replastered the walls, painted them claret (what else?), threw white cloths and candles on the tables, then set about building the kind of wine-bar restaurant (one downstairs, one up) they’d always wished existed.

One that, at street level, feels a little like the caves à vin dotted around Paris’s 11th or an enoteca in Sicily. Those wine bars where you can walk in, slide into a rickety chair opposite the bar or out front, have someone charming hand you a bracing martini or a pastis, then ferry out snacks: a pair of ruffle-edged gnocco fritto with anchovies and fried sage leaves laid down their length, maybe, or a pig’s head croquette or two, loosely bound within a golden crumb, parsley and eschalot and verdant salsa verde cutting the richness.

Linger downstairs and blackboard specials join a couple of larger plates, of which the confit duck is the frontrunner. It’s salted, then cooked slowly enough that the flesh teases apart, pickled plums restraining the fat. For more modest appetites, the whipped salted cod is a Raffal favourite, the recipe extracted from Andy Logue, chef of (now-closed) Bar Vincent, over drinks.

Book upstairs, though, and you’re in for a full meal, defined again by cooking that extols simplicity and nourishment over flashy technique or contrived plating. It’s food that trusts itself, realised by former Dry Dock sous Andy Buchanan and tied to Hunter and Raffal’s own memories and desires. Risotto, tinted red with nebbiolo, turned through bitter radicchio and topped with oozing scamorza, comes from trips to Florence. It’s great with grilled meats, they say, but serve it on its own ahead of a mustard-sauced pork cutlet, grilled hard and rested well. Call it an opportunity missed.

The fried sweetbreads? Call them an opportunity taken, the crumb giving way to soft sweetness, a peppercorn sauce of real bite seeping into the cracks. A cap of frisee and eschalot comes free, but you’ll need to add some housemade baguette to drag through the dregs.

Upstairs or down, Raffal or Hunter or Matt Prokop (one more gun somm) will top up water from a decorative radicchio jug, snaking between couples and early regulars to a soundtrack of Kate Bush and Leonard Cohen. You know, heartbreakers.

Ask for a drink, and they’ll go into bat for the Yellow Flower pecorino made by Praeter in SA for its depth and minerality, expound on the virtues of Beechworth wines, or steer you to a vivid grenache (made by GUM in Heathcote) to pair with the duck if you’re over pinot noir. And yep, if you’re after claret, they’ll always pour a Bordeaux alongside more gems from their personal cellar on the long list.

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset,” says one heart on the wall. Look on the bright side, see the good. Order another glass, swipe your spoon through a chocolate cremeux. Stone hearts are melting.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine