Scholars Wine Bar - Melbourne

I live locally in North Melbourne, and Scholars has always been a place I wanted to try as the restaurant looks great from the outside and my friends have always raved about the drinks. The drinks are only part of the amazing experience, as the food is truly the headliner! The food is such high quality and inventive, which is on standards with any three hatted restaurant! With things like edible gardens, beer soil and savory jelly dishes, flaming French desserts and also the wonderful drinks on offer. The staff is friendly and the prices are very good, this is the perfect place for drinks with friends or a romantic dinner. I will be going back again.

This restaurant is exquisitely decorated and the glassware is crystal clear and spotless. Our server was very friendly and attentive. She listed the special beers available and I ordered what she said was an Irish red ale. When it came is was barely chilled, but I drank it anyway. It turned out to be a Scottish style ale, from California. I should have asked the price because it ended up being $13. I rarely order bottled beer in restaurants and had no idea it would be so expensive. The bottle of Fourplay No. 1, an Italian red wine blend $50), was quite nice. The bread and butter platter $4.50) was excellent, and when we asked for some olive oil to accompany it, it was cheerfully provided. Our mains of beef salad $24) and confit duck leg $28) were both tasty. The beef in the salad consisted of four small slices of what seemed like semi-dried beef. It was nice, just not much of it. The duck leg and breast) was really good and came with a couple of pieces of roasted pumpkin and onion. This was our first time here and we plan to return.

Oh. My. God. This place is spot on for food, for wine, for ambiance and for service. We had passed this restaurant a few times and dismissed it as a local hangout. Wrong. Last week we actually had a better look and decided to give it a go. I am sooooo glad we did. The place is cozy but still professional enough to have a business lunch or dinner for well heeled clients. The service is impeccable. These guys are trained and they know their stuff. To get things started I had the Knight cocktail which was like drinking a perfect apple pie....with just enough kick to let you know that it wasn 't an innocent pie. We chose to start with some small plates and ordered a small pot of garlic prawns, chips with aioli and some bacon croquettes. All beautiful and all delicious. Each dish had just a touch of something special, like the powdered dressing on the croquettes, and the flavours were beautifully balanced with no crazy ingredients. Just mouthfuls of perfection in every bite. For main we both chose the beef with fondant carrots......perfect again. The beef was so tender it was almost criminal. It was accompanied by some small caramelised onions, another cunning powder that had a faint fennel taste, fondant carrot which was sweet without being cloying and a few little zucchini pieces. This was accompanied by a very good house shiraz from Heathcote. Dessert was creme brulee which was accompanied with raspberry sorbet and they set the whole thing alight with a little grand marnier sublime. If you want a place where every mouthful is a delight, where the service is attentive and your surrounds comfortable then go here. Go this week! You will not regret it!

This restaurant is the most amazing place to dine at. We attended two wine club meetings within a couple of months, but the food was a set menu where you had to attempt to work out the food and match the wine. We decided that we would like to eat here and actually look at the menu. We were not disappointed, the chef Michael, owner Mike and Stuart make this restaurant an incredible culinary journey and a more than happy to explain how food is prepared or cooked. The dishes are made up of so many small and tasty things which in their own taste unbelievable but combined give a whole new experience. Even though we live quite some distance from the restaurant we are going to be very regular customers, not just for the food but for the passion and enthusiasm the team have and happily pass on to everyone walking in that door.

We had attended a few of the 5-7pm happy hours that Scholars have on most nights during the week and were very impressed by the wine and cocktail list, so we decided to try the restaurant. We weren 't disappointed. Right from our first greeting at the door, we were made to feel very welcome and were looked after superbly by the lovely staff for the entire night. Once shown to our seats, we were pleasantly taken with the comfortable and classy interior decor of the dining room. After ordering, we were presented with a lovely complimentary appetiser, which really set the scene for the quality of the meal that followed. Our entrees came out in good time, both presented beautifully. Mine, steak tartare was simple but tasty, as was my wife 's entree. Our mains were well-proportioned but not large and again beautifully presented. My lamb loin was cooked beautifully, as was my wife 's barramundi. Both were complimented with very well-balanced sauces. Overall, the quality of our food was as good or better than many 'hatted ' restaurants we 've dined at elsewhere. Across the whole night, the staff were helpful and addressed my wife 's dietary requirements without a fuss. Our waiter was knowledgeable about the wine list and provided some fantastic recommendations for both of us that complimented our meals perfectly. All of this was topped of by a lovely gesture of a few taste of a fortified wine that blew our socks off! All in all, a fantastic night, delivered by highly competent wait staff and true 'Melbourne-quality ' chefs. We will be back...as soon as possible.