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The Wine Library

Terry Durack
Terry Durack

The one dish you must try ... pork and veal meatballs, cabbage and tomato, $12.
The one dish you must try ... pork and veal meatballs, cabbage and tomato, $12.Quentin Jones

Mediterranean$$

13/20

At last, somewhere that's not just for young people," says the antique dealer making his way out of The Wine Library. "No offence," he adds mildly, looking around at the forty- and fiftysomethings sipping glasses of prosecco and ordering bottles of cult wine.

And none taken, from the look of it. Paddington and Woollahra locals are just too thrilled to have their own sexy little small bar to give a hoot. Let the youngies go off to Slurry Hills and join a queue for the privilege of drinking a Vanilla Flamingo out of a jam jar. The Wine Library is far more civilised, with its custom-built wine list, professional floor staff and menu of wine-friendly food. And the best thing, as far as the locals are concerned, is it's been opened by one of their own – Buzo, the ever-popular 10-year-old Italian just around the corner in Jersey Road.

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At night, the converted shop-front space positively glows with fluorescent orange. Sydney designer Bill McMahon has gone retro-'50s, setting panels of cut-out bottles and glasses against back-lit walls, then lining actual bottles in front of the silhouetted ones: the visual equivalent of make-mine-a-double.

The zinc bar takes pride of place: set high and long, it's lined with stools and is wide enough for comfortable dining. It ends in a small open kitchen encircled with its own dining bench, flanking a see-through charcuterie/cool room. Those in need of a proper sit-down can take a table in the more intimate dining room down the back – or, in summer, in the courtyard. The place already feels like a social club for the restaurant industry, represented tonight by three chefs, two restaurateurs and two critics.

Despite Buzo's Italian accent, the menu here is more broadly Mediterranean. Snacky dishes run all day, from breakfast panini to paprika-salted almonds to pork and rabbit rillettes, oysters with cabernet vinegar and New England-style lobster mayo rolls. After 5pm, more gutsy items such as baked mac and cheese arrive.

A selection of salumi ($18), listed incorrectly as embuditos rather than embutidos, presents as freshly shaved prosciutto, fennel salami and coppa on a wooden board, served with thin, crunchy pan con tomate (grilled sourdough bread rubbed with olive oil and tomato). It's good drinking food and the clean, perfumed intensity of the meats works well with both an aromatic 2009 Mantel Blanco Sauvignon Blanc from Spain ($10 glass/$49 bottle), or a spicy, sappy 2008 Curlewis Bel Sel Geelong Pinot Noir ($13/$50).

The 15-page wine list is deliciously serious, covering a happy mix of affordables right up to the odd Super Tuscan and eight wines from that unfaddishly biodynamic estate, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti.

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You're not going to get that in a hurry in Surry Hills, honey.

Nor are you going to get the elegant simplicity of a soft, warm quesadilla of truffle and creamy stracchino ($12). I would have liked more truffle but who wouldn't? Also enjoyable is silky, subtle, house-smoked salmon with dill and chardonnay vinaigrette ($12), and two light and bouncy pork and veal golfballs in a swampy, lived-in tomato sauce with shredded cabbage ($12).

Be forewarned, it's a bread-heavy menu. So many dishes come with their own tailor-made bread that when you order several to share, it's carb overload. That's not going to play well in the eastern suburbs.

For now, much cooking is taking place in the nearby Buzo kitchen, until new kitchen equipment arrives, which might explain the patchy nature of the food. A prosciutto-wrapped pork and veal terrine ($12) feels more like meatloaf; baby gem lettuce with sheep's milk feta dressing ($8) is blandly underdressed; and a stew of lamb shoulder with lentils ($15) is slow-cooked to a daal-like sludge. A cute moulded treacle and walnut cheesecake ($9) is texturally dry but tastes rich and sweet.

Manager Marc Banytis and his good-natured team have what it takes to make the new venture work. The food doesn't set the heart racing but plays more of a supporting role to meeting over a glass of wine after work, or a coffee or a Trumer Pilsner at any hour.

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So roll on, small bars, we love you – especially when the detail is there, such as hooks beneath the bar for bags and coats; and real linen napkins stitched by co-owner James Hird's mother. It all requires a slightly different attitude to going out, however, because you cannot be guaranteed a table, or even a seat. You may eat standing up. You may forget to eat. You may stay up too late. Yes, all those things you did when you were young.

tdurack@smh.com.au

Terry's Table Talk blog has moved, you can find it here:www.smh.com.au/entertainment/blog/table-talk

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Terry DurackTerry Durack is the chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and Good Food.

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