I am not sure how Yelp got this coded as an Italian restaurant rather than an Australian restaurant.
There is a spaghetti dish on the menu ... but most of this is as 100% Oz as flat whites and Australian Rules Football.
By Aussie standards, this is a mix of breakfast cafe and gastropub.
Breakfast cafes open early in the morning and close midafternoon.
Gastropubs open lunch time or late afternoon and go into the night.
Bar Nina does it all.
And it does it all damm well too.
* * *
I came here to drink but came back for breakfast.
I looked over the menu while drinking and was highly impressed.
The bar here is small but very very well chosen. Only a few types of beer on tap. Only a few gins. Only a few whiskies.
But what they pick is absolutely first rate.
The bartender gave me a guided tour of Australian gins with an emphasis on the Four Pillars family.
The Four Pillars distillery makes outstanding gins.
I had their dry gin which is literally half holland gin and half pastis with none of the cloyingness of a regular pastis and a nice clean taste in the mouth. Imagine an herbal anise gin and you have Four Pillars Dry.
I could drink that forever.
They also do a Bloody Shiraz gin. This is a gin made with - yes you guessed it - a shiraz wine. The gin is analogous to the wine cachacas that come out of Minas Gerais in Brazil.
Imagine a drink that tastes like wine but has the strength and power of raw spirits.
Imagine if brandy never lost its wine-iness or its grape-iness when it turned into brandy.
This is Shiraz gin.
I recommend it highly.
* * *
Loving the menus I saw,
I brought the lovely wife back to Bar Nina for breakfast.
We both had variations on gravad lox on toast with the suitable veggies and dressings that go with that.
Fine toast. Even finer salmon. Great garnishings.
A fine way to start the day.
Had both a flat white and an espresso.
Both were excellent.
The wife whose meal was similar to mine agrees.
* * *
This is more of a neighborhood place than a destination place.
You would not fly to Sydney from Wellington to eat at Bar Nina.
But if I lived in the neighborhood, I would make this one of my regular places.
For everyday Australian food and drink, it is just what you want it to be.
*****
Footnote:
No other place to put this comment so I will stick it at the end of the Bar Nina review.
Australia is rightly known for its excellent excellent coffee.
Informants tell me that Brazil sends its best beans to Italy and Australia because those are the two nations that appreciate fine coffee beans.
The U.S. rarely sees Brazilian coffee beans unless you know a small scale Brazilian importer.
That said - if you really want to appreciate good Australian coffee -
Forget about flat whites.
Yes, that is the famous Australian coffee drink.
But too many flat whites - even if made short - drown the coffee in too much milk.
The remarkable taste of the bean is lost.
I deliberately ordered a flat white and a plain espresso from the same good restaurant to test this theory - and the theory was overwhelmingly confirmed.
Really good coffee should be drunk straight up as an espresso.
The milk masks everything and obscures quality.
Australian coffee is better than the coffee of many many many other places.
Let the Aussie baristas and roasters show you what they can really do. read more
