Grape expectations: how new wave wine bars are creating a fresh venue format
Britain is currently undergoing a wine bar revolution. A concept once derided as a tired ‘80s hangover – all yuppies, big shoulder pads and over-oaked chardonnay – has reinvented itself as the coolest hang-out in town, with new bars multiplying rapidly. Pour yourself a glass of something funky and we’ll explain how it all works.
How are we defining the modern ‘wine bar’?
Good question. Indeed, with food key to the offer in so many (particularly those spin-offs from well-regarded restaurants: Levan’s Bar Levan; Higher Ground’s Flawd; La Cave by Sheffield’s Bench; Ardfern from Edinburgh’s Little Chartroom), you might argue that many straddle some yet undefined space between bar and restaurant.
The key characteristic uniting this new wave is a desire to serve exciting wine. Think: small producers, often working in less familiar wine regions, possibly using low-intervention methods. Most of these bars have a large by-the-glass selection; often double as bottle shops; may function as daytime cafés; embrace pop-up events and kitchen takeovers; and cultivate an informal atmosphere in the way staff dress (down), interact with guests and talk about wine.
What are we eating?
That varies widely. A classic approach is to serve artisan cheeses, charcuterie and hot snacks (eg. grilled cheese sandwiches). But, in Manchester, Flawd’s menu runs to sharing plates of, for example, yellow beans, goat’s curd, garlic dressing and breadcrumbs or tromboncino squash, broad beans and mint.
At Edinburgh’s Spry Wines, many guests can sit at the bar-counter and order food ad hoc. But 15 table covers are reserved for people booked-in to eat from its a la carte, five-course tasting (£60) or sharing menu (£55 per-head). Dishes range from braised lamb shoulder, smoked aubergine and lamb fat paratha to cured halibut, Arbroath smokie cream and crispy potato. On Saturdays (food served from 1pm), Spry might have 60 people booked to dine, plus whatever food orders arise at the bar.
Not wishing to split hairs, but doesn’t that sound very much like… a restaurant?
Very droll. But no, not quite. Not everyone who visits Spry will eat. Moreover, like many wine bars, it serves an evolved menu despite not having a traditional restaurant kitchen. Spry has low-level extraction in one area and two induction hobs for heating. A restriction that meant when it opened in 2019 it stuck to charcuterie and tinned fish. Over time, executive chef Marzena Jackson developed various hot and cold dishes which, by cleverly prepping ahead, could be executed in the bar.
The tasting menu was a post-lockdown way of serving table-only-diners that stuck. In 2022, Spry opened a sister bakery-café downstairs, Ante, which, as it has a full kitchen, enabled Marzena and head chef, Josh Rich, to develop Spry’s menu further. However, most of its food is still prepared in the bar. Two chefs work on it by day. One handles production during evening service.
“It’s all in the prep,” says co-owner Matt Jackson, of this unusual method of feeding people. That difference extends to how Spry’s guests are seated, too. Its two tables-of-four are coffee-table-and-sofa set-ups. “A lot of people find it refreshing to be hanging, feeling like they’re in someone’s living room, being served waves of food,” says Jackson.
Wine bars working wonders on two induction hobs. Is that a thing?
It is one method, certainly. Many wine bars do not have restaurant-spec kitchens with full extraction. The Flawd kitchen is a compact station where, to heat things, chef Seri Nam uses a toaster, electric pressure-cooker and sandwich press. Consequently, wine bar menus are generally short (10 to 14 dishes, typically). But to ingenious owners and chefs that is no bar to providing exciting food.
Sister London bars, Diogenes the Dog and Aspen & Meursault, do not employ any chefs. Yet they make their own pastrami and gravlax (and salmon pate from the trim), and serve dishes of chicken rillettes; burrata and confit garlic; or sticky aubergine, chickpea and pistachio salad. Luckily, some of the managers are ex-chefs who, says owner Sunny Hodge, have an “itch” to work on food and help him develop dishes. But all the bars’ staff are trained in food prep and are rostered to cover various related tasks each week. Dishes (a few require cooked-to-order elements), can then be readily assembled by one assigned staff member, during service.
In that way, wine bars are lean and dynamic. They can operate with one, two or zero chefs, with limited kitchen facilities, if necessary; in an open format that allows chefs real creative freedom. Moreover, such a set-up allows the wider team to focus its energies on selling glasses of wine, the delivery of which – compared to a restaurant dish of equivalent price – requires far less complexity, time and labour. “Wine is way more efficient,” says Hodge.
That seems a lot of fancy food for venues selling wine?
True. But it is necessary. Charcuterie platters suffice in some bars, particularly those with a high volume of transient customers. But to retain guests for several drinks and maintain a healthy spend-per-head, you need a menu that can provide ‘dinner’, not just a snack. “With wine bars, the money is being made in wine and the food is keeping them on the table and making the concept viable,” says Hodge.
Of course, there is decent margin to be made on food, in itself (it contributes around 40% of turnover in wine bars). But settling on a cost-effective menu that holds customers, can be tricky. Before opening Hovingham’s Michelin-starred Mýse, chef Josh Overington ran York wine bar Cave du Cochon. Its food went through several iterations: snacks and charcuterie, then fondue was added (“Crazy to say but that made a massive difference.”), and, after investing in a proper kitchen, a period where Cave reprised select dishes from his nearby fine dining restaurant, Le Cochon Aveugle.
Cave finally flourished, however, serving gourmet flatbreads: “It doesn’t take much staffing. And who doesn’t like pizza? It goes well with wine. It was perfect. Food and staffing costs went down. People would spend a lot of time there and drink wine. It did everything I would want it to.”
Why are so many wine bars opening now?
Firstly, the audience is there. In 2013, when Sager + Wilde opened in East London ('the tinder that lit the fire,' as Club Oenologique magazine put it), it embodied both a change in wine appreciation and a generational shift in how the under-40s wanted to eat and drink.
In its hip informality, keen pricing and thirst for lesser-known regions, grapes and styles, Sager +Wilde took good wine – then, largely confined to expensive dining rooms, policed by often pompous sommeliers – and gave it a youthful, democratic energy. Its short food menu felt equally significant. Grazing on high-quality ‘plates’ in casual environments has, arguably, come to define how Britain eats.
Wine bars are cool. But there must be deeper structural factors at play?
Recent years have seen great pressure on consumer spending and changes in guest behaviour, both of which favour wine bars. They are flexible in a way restaurants are not. You can pop-in for one drink or stay all night.
For owners, the plusses are manifest. In staff, kitchen space, purchasing and food waste, the traditional restaurant is a complex and costly business. Wine venues, particularly those that do not require a full kitchen or extraction can compete in that sphere at lower cost.
How interesting does your wine list need to be?
If you want to compete at this sector’s sharp end, very. Hodge is unusual in that to ensure his menu stands-out – it includes Taiwanese, Texan and Indian wines - he imports some wines directly, a significant logistical and bureaucratic undertaking. “If you’re not finding creative ways to bring fun stuff to the table then your concept is not going to be as exciting,” says Hodge, who has recently branched out into trade sales, too.
Importing aside, any good wine bar requires at least one person (owner, GM etc.), with detailed wine knowledge, good relationships with key importer-distributors and a nose for the more interesting stock you might be able to pick-up from them.
Owners who have forged relationships with specific vineyards and makers may be at an advantage in securing stock as sought-after allocations hit the UK. Either way, building your list requires leg work you have to enjoy. “Going to tastings, getting new things on the list, that was the pleasure of it,” says Overington.
Interesting wines assembled, how do you sell them to people?
It is a cliché propagated by wine enthusiasts of a certain vintage that, in the last decade, technical expertise has given way to a vague hipster language (all those crushable, funky, crunchy wines), where the service is all about a ‘vibe’ rather than detailed wine knowledge. In fact, good staff in good modern wine bars are more than capable of getting deep on malolactic fermentation or terroir (“The learning aspect is part of our experience,” says Hodge) but, upfront, may choose not to.
Historically, sommeliers had a tendency to download their learning on baffled guests. In cooler bars, the emphasis is on selling wine on flavour first, the staff’s enthusiasm for it and the wine-maker’s backstory. Bar owners want personalities who love wine and are eager to learn, over qualifications. Hodge is so specific about how he wants staff to impart their wine insight: “I’d rather train with zero knowledge.”
“The most important thing for us is people that can talk to the guest. I know sommeliers that can’t sell wine at all,” says Jackson, who serves exclusively natural wines at Spry.
“There’s a lot of hand-selling because we list wines people may not have tried before,” he continues, and those natural wines require a whole new approach: “An understanding of conventional wine definitely helps, but it’s almost like a different thing altogether. Things that I was taught [were] faults, when I was being trained, are now styles people enjoy.”
Enthusiastic staff aside, what other sales techniques keep the wine flowing?
Maintaining a large by-the-glass offering is a big come-on to curious drinkers. However, it is a delicate ecosystem. “Like an orchestra, if you move one glass everything needs to shift around,” says Hodge. You need to closely monitor sales to avoid wastage. All open wines need to be tasted before service, rather than relying on scribbled dates on labels.
Rather than a flat GP, most modern wine bars price flexibly, with mark-ups varying for many reasons. Be that treating discerning drinkers to a competitively-priced glass of expensive wine or putting a lower GP on a style you are keen to develop interest in - both of which will enhance a bar’s kudos as an exciting spot.
Display bottles prominently, too. Fashionably designed labels have a purpose. At Cave du Cochon, says Overington: “People would buy with their eyes. A cool bottle would fly-out.”
Will this wine bar craze grow and grow?
All hospitality venues share challenges and there are issues specific to this model, be it navigating duty changes; finding chefs who buy-in to this singular concept; or effectively marketing an ambitious food offer in a ‘bar’. Growing abstemiousness may be a problem, too. Anecdotally, people may be drinking less but trading-up to more expensive wines… for now.
But relative to operating a restaurant, the ‘wine bar + dining’ model feels nimble and streamlined in a way that has legs. Surveying the wider hospitality scene, Sunny Hodge assents: “I’m really happy I’m in this space.”
Case study: Lulu’s
Opened in 2022, Lulu’s is billed as the more playful little sister to Herne Hill restaurant Llewelyn’s. Located next door to its older sibling the tightly-proportioned venture is a chameleon, operating as a retail space and sandwich and salad bar in the day before morphing into an evening wine bar with a tight small plates offer.
Owner Katya Milavic Davies and executive chef Lasse Petersen launched Lulu’s partly to bolster Llewelyn’s back of house space - the two buildings are now conjoined - but also to reach a different demographic and provide two different price points.
“In general Lulu’s attracts a more youthful crowd,” Petersen says. “Llewelyn’s isn’t formal but it’s an a la carte restaurant in which most people will have a starter, main and dessert. Lulu’s is much more casual. The spend per head is well under half that of Llewelyn’s at around £30."
Lulu’s has a “makeshift” kitchen that’s set up as the retail element closes that comprises of little more than a pair of induction hobs and a small plancha (there is no extraction). Evening service is handled by a single chef and one or two front of house.
“We can do up to 70 covers so it can be pretty punchy. It’s the sort of small plates a lot of other places are offering but it’s very complementary to what we do at Llewelyn’s. Part of the reason that we - and I suspect a lot of other operators - set up operations like this is that chefs are both hard to come by and expensive. If you run a business that’s serving wine and a simple menu that doesn’t require a team of chefs there’s a big cost saving.”
Lulu’s launched as a walk-ins only venture but soon pivoted to bookings. “We do keep some tables free for drinkers but most of our guests now book 1.45-hour slots," Petersen continues. "Soon after we launched, we realised that a lot of people weren’t coming because they were afraid that they would have to queue. We ended up in a weird situation where we were less busy because people assumed we were busy. We find that in Herne Hill most people like to plan what they are doing before they go out. Alongside this, we don’t have that much footfall here in the evening.”
Lulu’s experience is not atypical. The UK public don’t necessarily interact with wine bars and comparable ventures - including tapas bars - in the same way as their southern European counterparts in that they’re much more likely to want to get stuck in than pop in as part of a crawl of venues or go in ahead of a full meal somewhere else.
Petersen believes this is at least partly down to the higher cost of eating and drinking out in the UK. “In pintxos bars in Spain, for example, you’re probably spending two or three Euros on a snack whereas in London it’s probably going to be closer to £7 and the wine is far more expensive too. People must commit a bit more. Our solution is to offer a range of price points including some larger dishes, so people come away with a sense of value for money.”