Le Cellier

MELBOURNE has always had a thing for being the most European of Australian cities (irritating or admirable, depending on which side of the border you're standing) and one of the most obvious manifestations of its Euro-worship happens in its bars. The dark wood, terrazzo-floored, old-world wine list, meticulously aligned Campari bottle look has become so ubiquitous that it's moved beyond cliche and into default. The saving grace (and the reason for the endurance) of this look is that it provides an unfailingly enjoyable backdrop in which to enjoy the demon drink.

Le Cellier, the new wine bar attached to Brunswick Street's Madame Sous Sous, differs slightly from the dominant paradigm in that its roots are French rather than Italian. Sure, there's a patchwork terrazzo floor and plenty of darkish timber but there are also French cafe chairs, a French soundtrack, copper detailing on benchtops and display fridges, and cute timber beams, decoratively running across a slightly lowered roof and giving the room a cosy, undeniably Gallic boost. Then there are glass-doored cabinets full of wine running around the walls of the narrow space, holding a mix with an obvious French bias, but with a good collection of local labels and some other old-world stuff as well that can be drunk in or taken away.

During the day, Le Cellier functions as a cafe with a menu that sings a quiche/pate/croque-monsieur song pretty tunefully and relatively inexpensively (all around $7.50). There's pretty good coffee and traditional French sweet stuff that includes canele and madeleines.

After four o'clock, however, Le Cellier puts on its bar drag, closing its front door so that you have to enter through next door Madame Sous Sous. The decor works particularly well at night, all warm colours and cosy atmospherics, and there's a decent list of beer (Kronenberg, $10) or wine by the glass from the well-annotated list (2006 Laroche Petit Chablis, $14) to get you into the back-street Parisian barre de vin mood.

Le Cellier may be treading a very familiar Euro-Melbourne bar path but it's doing it in a charming and bright-eyed way. It's a thoroughly likeable and very civilised addition to the Brunswick Street mix.

Cheers A warm and hospitable clubhouse for all the northside Francophiles.

Jeers Slightly awkward feeling brought on by furniture a little too large for the space.