Come for the cocktails, stay for the Thai snacks: This new bar is not your average Joe

Quickly skimming the menu at recently reopened North Melbourne wine bar Joe Taylor, a few recognisable Thai dishes jump off the page. You’ve likely spooned a bowl clean of tom yum or mango sticky rice before. But even the familiar is excitingly unfamiliar here.

Read deeply to discover the hot and sour tom yum is served not as a soup but as a seasoning for shoestring fries, and the mango sticky rice has shapeshifted from a sweet dessert to a stiff drink in a frosty-fingerprinted martini laced with pandan liqueur.

The Errol Street wine bar has kept the name (and signage) of its longstanding predecessor, which was a spot for pizzas and classic cocktails, but that’s where the similarities end.

New owners Pakchima and Scot Nottle – the couple behind Airport West cafe Bola Bake – have given it a delicious new lease on life, translating lesser-seen Thai heritage food into a Melbourne wine bar context. This is not your average Joe.

Sure, it’s still a place you can swan into for a pre- or post-dinner drink. Perhaps a highball, humming with golden-hued Mekhong (“Thai whisky that’s actually rum,” our waiter explains), a bittersweet blend of Montenegro and ginger beer, and a cluster of pomegranate pearls that slide up your straw, boba style, bursting with tartness.

But not feasting would be a missed opportunity, as a couple of wine-seeking walk-ins realise as they tentatively order one snack, then another, then – inevitably – dessert (a wedge of glossy Thai-style flan that glistens in the candlelight before it’s gone in a flash).

Head chef Taarn Kasemerat’s menu has a way of stringing you along, in the best sense. Melbourne knows pad Thai and green curry are only a tiny bite of Thailand’s culinary bounty, and this team eschews them to riff on the nostalgic food they grew up eating.

Thong muan, a traditionally cigar-shaped Thai wafer, is instead moulded into a curved shell for the spanner crab tart, strewn with savoury pandan custard and compressed nashi pear.

And run-of-the-mill tartare gets a run for its money with this larb. Chunkily hand-cut kangaroo is so delightfully tender you barely need to chew, dressed in a roasty, toasty northern Thai spice mix, and destined to land in crackers made of fried beef tendons.

There’s a homeliness not only in the hodgepodge of antique tableware, but also in how accommodating the staff in red T-shirts are. When a mate joins us spontaneously – with dietary requirements we would’ve usually flagged in advance – our waiter takes it in his stride, seamlessly reworking our order, suggesting swaps, and sauces we can have on the side.

Three dipping sauces add three extra dimensions to the one-bowl wonder that is the charred pork jowl rice. Silky, smoky, slow-cooked shreds seep their juices into lardon-spiked rice, with a tamari egg yolk and a litany of fresh condiments to stir through.

The one-page wine list has been handpicked with the menu in mind, so expect little delay when you need a drink to match your next dish. Bonus: most bottles are under $100.

It’s not just what you’re eating and drinking, but where, that sets this Joe Taylor apart from the last. An ornate chandelier dangles above a vintage, six-seater dining table in the front window, casting a glow as warm as the hospitality within. On one side is a bar framed by vinyls (ABBA, Neil Diamond); on the other is a cavalcade of booths partitioned by cafe curtains. And beyond? Something of a labyrinth that leads into a dining room of white tablecloths and then a weatherproofed courtyard.

Two of this suburb’s defining venues are the peerless Manze and Boire, the respective hatted diner and sibling bar bringing Mauritius to Melbourne with easygoing excellence. The adjacent Joe Taylor feels at home in their orbit – championing its Thai heritage, riffing on it respectfully and doing it with the kind of charm that says: come one, come all.

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