Wine meets wood-fire at Richmond hotspot Clover

Apart from the metal across the front door, twisted into an ornate handle that spells out the restaurant name – Clover – the decor at this new Richmond hotspot is a bit of a blank canvas. It looks like a standard-issue modern wine bar, which is to say it has white walls and wooden high-top and banquette seating, and that's about it. In the daytime and early evening, sunlight streams in the double shopfront windows, and at night time the hue is soft and flattering. All the better to feed you, my dear.

Clover is the work of Lyndon Kubis, who also owns The Moon in Collingwood and several wine shops, and Charley Snaddon-Wilson, best known for his work as chef at Etta in Brunswick.

The restaurant and wine bar were supposed to open in winter, but construction issues and other delays pushed that opening back to November. Richmond, apparently, was ready: the place is heaving, with reservations hard to come by unless you want to eat at 5pm or 9pm.

Kubis' wine list is a thing of beauty, especially if you're a fan of the Loire Valley in France and its many gifts – though this is a wide-ranging and international list, with Australia, Germany and Italy well represented.

Most of Snaddon-Wilson's cooking is done on a wood-fired hearth in the open kitchen, which is no huge departure for him – he employed the same methods at Etta in Brunswick and also during his time at Embla in Melbourne's CBD.

This love affair with fire shows up in some expected ways – beef rib cap with charred zucchini ($42) – and many ways that are boldly creative. A fat beefsteak tomato ($19) is roasted and smoked over the fire until it becomes a round of summer-flavoured goo, served with tangy fermented white asparagus and white anchovies. Leeks ($18) are cooked en papillote until they're a slump of oniony pleasure, then topped with a dollop of macadamia cream.

I loved all of Snaddon-Wilson's forays into seafood, starting with smoked fish atop a square of sourdough ($7 each). Raw albacore ($21) is infused with the fresh taste of raw tomato, and gets a complimentary zing from the addition of lovage.

Turbot ($38) is deeply flavoured thanks to a few days of dry ageing, before being roasted and served with lightly smoked mussels and a sauce made from the collagen of the fish. It's a fish-on-seafood-on-fish preparation that sings with oceanic goodness.

If I have any complaints about the food at Clover, they have not to do with taste but logistics and price. Many of Snaddon-Wilson's dishes are presented on the menu as complete but aren't really – they require bread.

Take the fresh cheese ($17), a pile of soft and tangy house-made cheese similar to a smooth ricotta, topped with burnt agrodolce onions. This is more a spread than a stand-alone dish – bread is required in order to enjoy it properly.

Which would be fine, I suppose, but the price for a plate with one halved large slice of honey bread is $12, and it's not really enough for two people to pair with all the things that are obviously made to go with bread on this menu ($18 navy beans; $27 charred mushrooms; even the aforementioned tomato dish really benefits from a side of bread). So now you're looking at almost $30 for a slice of bread and some milky cheese, and I know prices are rising and food is getting more expensive everywhere, but even so this seems excessive.

On the bright side, however, there was not one dish to come out of this kitchen – over multiple visits – that didn't impress on the flavour front.

Even dessert is a vehicle for quality, whether you go for the crowd-pleasing chocolate cremeux topped with cognac sauce and burnt cream ($15) or the slightly more esoteric ice-cream and granita ($14) made with camomile and roast peach.

The well-trained staff are fully enthralled with everything about the place – it's lovely when you can tell that the people working here are genuinely invested and full of pride for their product.

It's a pride that's well-placed. In a crowded field of fresh wine bars, Clover shines brightly as one of the best newcomers around.

Vibe Classic shopfront with simple wine bar vibes

Go-to dish Grilled tomato, $19

Drinks Short cocktail list; fantastic and wide-ranging wine list

Cost About $125 for two, plus drinks