Characteristically hip and brimming with energy, Odd Culture has now been firmly established as one of the best places to eat and drink on the dynamic strip of King Street, Newtown. To muscle into the inner west’s love of libations and rich, fatty food is no easy feat. Locals would just as easily spend the entire day at The Courthouse or park up at The Bank for a few hours. So the fact that you’ll almost always find Odd Culture now packed with cashed-up locals at all hours of the day says a lot.
The beer list is just as extensive and exploratory as the wines at Odd Culture, most of which come from the venue’s dedicated bottle shop just a few doors down. This, along with a coveted 4 AM licence and bold breakfast choices like blood sausage pancakes with pork jowl and fried eggs, has made Odd Culture a mainstay.
Anyone coming from Melbourne must be wondering what the fuss is about. Lucky for them, the team behind Odd Culture are expanding upon the concept by opening a sister venue in Melbourne. Odd Culture Melbourne, located in Fitzroy, will be another bar and bottleshop concept with a few important differences from the original venue.
“In a lot of ways, Melbourne is a spiritual home of Odd Culture; the original concept for the Newtown venue was born out of a trip to the grand old breweries of Belgium – but also in part inspired by the small bar and bottle shops of Melbourne,” said Odd Culture Group CEO James Thorpe.
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“The hybrid bar and bottle shop model is really difficult to pull off in New South Wales, and we never really got there from a licensing perspective in Newtown [which is why the bottle shop is on an entirely separate premise]. We’re constantly delighted at the level of freedom in Melbourne which empowers venues to operate in a more human-engaged and flexible way.”
Odd Culture Melbourne will mirror its original’s trendy location with a site along Brunswick Street. Local hospitality heavyweight Gerry Nass will lead the charge as General Manager and James MacDonald is the Executive Chef who will oversee a food offering mostly made up of terrines and pates as well as dishes carried over from the Sydney venue. That means you’ll probably be tucking into some of that incredible chicken liver parfait and beer bread and that aforementioned blood sausage pancake with pork jowl and a fried egg.
The new Melbourne bar and restaurant will, like the original, focus primarily on all things fermentation with a commitment to bringing locals a natural wine and wild ale bar the likes of which the city has never seen before. If the Newtown venue is anything to go by, it seems like an easy goal to set even for a city with as much fierce competition as Melbourne.
Although the major difference between the Sydney and Melbourne venues, as alluded to above, will be that Odd Culture Melbourne will have a bottle shop on site.
