Must Wine Bar Perth – A Taste of France: Wine, Food & Foreign Accents
If you simply have a thing for guys with accents then…
What’s better on a rainy winter day in Perth than locking yourself up in a wine bar? Nothing, that’s what! This past Sunday I decided to check out French wine bar Must to see if it lives up to it’s reputation. My glass travelled from France to Brazil to Lebanon and then to Italy – you need a wine passport to get through an afternoon at the Must Wine Bar in Perth.
For some reason I was expecting it to be bigger inside, perhaps that’s because I had heard about Must from every second person I’ve met. It is actually very cozy inside. There is a grazing/bar area to the right and fine dining/bistro area (aka white table clothes and a sh*tload of cutlery) to the left. The divide is a wall of wine with cute little bottle tags on.
Blackboards hang over the bar with an array of menu items on. All sorts of spirit bottles adorn the back wall, many that I haven’t come across before. Note to myself: I MUST try a cocktail next time!
It’s a mixture of patterns, lighting styles, vases, and cushion covers – I do really like this mix and match theme. I felt a lot more comfortable in the grazing area. The fine dining area looked a bit too intense for a Sunday catch up with a friend over a glass or two of vino.
I parked up at one of the bar tables, where one of the waiters brought over the grazing menu, the specials menu, the fine dining menu and a humungous folder which housed the wine menu. The wines in the menu were to be purchased by the bottle only so we were given another 2-sided menu with the wines by the glass list. Let’s just say I was menu rich.
The first thing I spotted on the Sunday special menu was a glass of Must’s exclusive Champagne – Pierre Mignon 1er Cru Brut NV from Le Breuil, Champagne France. AU$14 per glass. In short, I loved it – give me a glass of this over dessert any day. Read my tasting note here.
Other wines we tried from the menu were:
- Miolo Brut Serra Gaucha Vale dos Vinhedos 2009 from Brazil. AU$11 per glass. Read my tasting note here.
- Chateau KA ‘Source Blanche’ 2011 Muscat/Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon from the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. AU$11 per glass. Read my tasting note here.
- Cantina Santadi ‘Villa Solais’ 2011 Vermentino from Sardinia, Italy. AU$10 per glass. Read my tasting note here.
We matched these with a Two Cheese Board by Blue Cow for $18, which consisted of a brie and a blue cheese which had Chardonnay jelly on the side, a small bowl of sweet, salty and spicy nuts as well as some very tasty pistachio crackers and sourdough bread.
We also ordered the MUST Charcterie plate; jambon persille, rillettes of pork and cornichons, pate en croute and black olive tapanade. To be honest I have no idea what half of those words actually mean but boy they tasted good!When these sharing plates came out both my friend and I looked at them thinking that we will definitely be ordering more however by the time we got through it and a couple of wines we were sufficiently full. It was a great light lunch/afternoon snack. Plus these 2 plates and our 4 glasses of wine came to a total of AU$92 which I think is very reasonable for great quality wining and dining.
Where I was sitting was the perfect spot to spy on all the dishes coming out from the kitchen and I must admit the oysters as well as the 100% Butterfield Beef ‘French Cheeseburger’ Frites and Bearnaise looked mighty tasty. I am definitely going to have to go back for more! We also learnt that you can do a ‘wine takeaway’. If you particularly like any of the wines, you can purchase a bottle of it and take it home with you – love it!
It is definitely a classy establishment and like my friend said “it’s like walking into another country’ with all the waiters having some sort of accent. So if you feel like escaping Aussie for an afternoon of European fare, pay a visit to Must on Beaufort Street. Or if you simply have a thing for guys with accents then this spot is right up your alley!
