First look: French Saloon and Kirk’s complete their Hardware Lane triple threat with Le Pub

When the team behind hatted Melbourne restaurant French Saloon and its sibling Kirk’s Wine Bar decide to open a pub, you expect something fancy. But Le Pub’s co-owners, Con Christopoulos and Joshua Brisbane, have zeroed in on punter-friendly prices, potato cakes and music for their third venue to grace the corner of Hardware Lane and Little Bourke Street.

“Cafe culture’s all but dead,” Christopoulos says. “The only place you get to meet people and be part of a community is the pub.”

Le Pub is the latest addition to the Kirk’s empire on busy Hardware Lane.Simon Schluter

While French Saloon channels Parisian bistros and Kirk’s the neighbourhood bars of Europe, Le Pub is styled on the Aussie pub-plus-bottleshop format, nodding to the site’s past as Kirk’s Bazaar Hotel in the 19th century.

It’s not the team’s first go at a pub on this stretch of road. In late 2016, Kirk’s Public Bar opened next door to Kirk’s Wine Bar, serving pints, Scotch eggs and pork pies. Le Pub occupies that site plus the vacant building next door, and has the bonus of a dedicated kitchen.

Expect casual bar service, counter meals and nine Australian craft beers on tap, including a custom Local Brewing Co stout. Wine might be something from the 1000-strong bottle selection, or the $15 house pour. A breakfast sandwich of cotechino sausage, comte and egg is served all day, most likely while indie rock blasts in the 100-capacity venue.

“A noisy place is a healthy place,” Christopoulos says. “People can be themselves. There’s an element of breaking the rules, a bit of cheekiness.”

Despite executive chef Luke Fraser’s handle on French technique and British tradition – he trained at Michelin-starred London venues including The Square – he understands the brief for Le Pub.

“Down here’s a bit more fast and loose,” he says.

On a handwritten menu, you’ll find soup of the day alongside oysters Kilpatrick, and butter-poached leeks with truffle-hazelnut pesto. Retro favourites such as potato cakes and custard-soaked bread-and-butter pudding also appear. The pie’s a showstopper: braised oxtail and snail with a whole marrow bone set in a golden suet crust.

“Snails have an earthy chewiness about them, similar to a mushroom, that lends very well to the richness of the oxtail,” Fraser says. “We’ll try to always keep a hearty element … That’s quintessential to going to the pub.”

Cafe culture’s all but dead. The only place you get to meet people and be part of a community is the pub.

The cosy wood-panelled snug includes design nods to venues Christopoulos admires, from Willi’s bar in Paris, which inspired the sinuous curves of the timber bar, to echoes of Pellegrini’s in red leather stools. A mirrored alcove, op shop plates, grey-green tiles and alfresco smoking patio lean into the old-school atmosphere.

The new adjoining bottle shop holds a towering wall of wine plus a row of fridges that together hold about 250 bottles. There are tables for drinkers and diners, and big groups can hang out in the hewn-stone cellar downstairs, a surprise discovery during construction. Bottles from the retail section can be enjoyed in the venue for $25 corkage.

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