Belle's Hot Chicken gets a sister wine bar, Bar Clarine

Sigh in relief, natural wine lovers. The hottest fried chicken and natural wine shop in the country, Belle's Hot Chicken, is expanding in April, with the result that your waist can cease to.

The Belle's team are to open Bar Clarine, a natural wine bar with a light, modern-European menu cooked by fine dining chef turned fast food boss Morgan McGlone in the tiny space next door to Belle's on Gertrude Street. Like a slender, conjoined twin.

It's a move most people have seen coming and hoped for since Belle's opened in Melbourne last year. The Nashville-style fried chicken at Belle's is good, certainly, but how much chicken can one eat in pursuit of natural wine discovery? Not as much as wine lovers have been since Belle's came to be an unofficial cellar door for the minimal intervention wine producers of Victoria.

Bar Clarine will be serving a market-driven menu more sympathetic to the wines. It will also make better use of McGlone's skills, honed at Husk in Charleston. There will be a cold bar, with oysters, cured meats and their own cheeses. There's also talk of terrines served by the inch, as well as a daily changing menu of small plates dictated by the produce McGlone gets from his producer friends.

Expect minimal intervention all round, from the decor of whites, light woods and exposed bluestone, to the one-man-band service situation. Working the room, which seats just 20, or 25 really good friends, will be George McCulloch, the freshest face in wine (formerly at Moon Under Water), with occasional help from business partner Miranda Campbell, and Belle's current wine commander Peter Jo. Cheers to that.

Bar Clarine will open in the first week of April, at 150 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy.