Vincent: Canberra's new wine bar and restaurant opens in Barton

Say hello to Vincent, a moody and intimate new wine bar and restaurant in Barton.

It's got a cool black interior lit by glowing exposed filament lamps with a timber feature wall down the end and a rather unusual seating arrangement - the wine bar snakes around the room and every diner sits either at the bar or at one of the tables that branch off the bar.

Black shutters fill the front wall, letting light peek through from outside. When it's all lit up at night, passersby will get a mosaic view of the interior.

Co owner Ollie Ryrie and head chef Ute Pikler are young Canberrans starting up their own restaurant for the first time.

But they've been planning Vincent for a little while, wanting to create a casual but intimate wine bar for post-work drinks and meals.

"It began as a concept a few years ago because my business partner and I were food and wine enthusiasts. We met Ute through going to restaurants," Ryrie says. "We built the concept ourselves, we designed the place and came up with the wine bar."

Before you jump to conclusions, Vincent isn't named after the painter Vincent Van Gogh. Ryrie says the name was probably the last on their list but is a pleasing combination that signifies their love of wines. "It comes down to 'vino' which is wine and 'cent' which is 100," he says. But there won't be 100 wines just yet. "There's no significance really to how many wines we're going to have."

The wines will be both old and new world offerings, and Ryrie has consulted with Winewise expert Lester Jesberg before drawing up his list.

And what about that wine bar?

"We created a work bench to drink wine and eat food off and made it a simple passage for the customer to communicate with the waiter and the chefs through food and wine, without forgetting you in the corner of the restaurant," he says.

"We've made it much closer and more intimate."

In the kitchen Pikler is creating a tapas style menu with about 11 dishes which match the wines and are designed to share.

"It goes from lighter dishes to heavier, seafood through to a porterhouse steak. Very much European," Ryrie says.

Vincent is the latest shop to open at the new Governor Place precinct, on the ground floor of a multistory car park on Macquarie Street. Next door is Little Bird cafe, with a sushi shop on the other side and the Barton Flower Bar around the corner.

"We really liked the area, we think it's a growing hub, there's a few apartment buildings around, and a few hotels that have been fixed up," Ryrie says.

Vincent is open from 4pm Tuesdays to Saturdays. 45 Macquarie Street, Barton. See vincentrestaurant.com.au.

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