STORY BY MICHAEL HARDEN, PHOTOS BY CHRIS TURNER

Silver linings on the Covid cloud are few and far between but one of them can be found on Daylesford’s Howe Street in the form of new wine bar, Bar Merenda. Owners Andy Ainsworth and his wife Claire O’Flynn had been contemplating a move to the country from Sydney “to be closer to the food and drink we love made with small-scale, high-quality agriculture” but the pandemic fast-tracked that plan and they landed in Daylesford about 18 months ago without any real idea about what they would do once they arrived.

“We wanted to be in a place that had a strong, vibrant farming community, both in terms of winemaking and food production,” says Andy whose CV includes a decade managing the excellent and wine-centric 10 William Street restaurant in Sydney and making wine. “We knew this pocket of the Macedon Ranges had that. It’s also one of the most exciting and forward-thinking wine regions in Australia in terms of high quality, cool climate wines. I also had some winemaker friends who lived in Daylesford, so there was that social connection too.”

Though he and Claire were aware of the region’s reputation for high quality farming, they were blown away by “the number of small artisan producers of every kind from people making tiny amounts of brilliant sparkling wine to livestock farmers raising rare-breed cattle to veggie growers producing the most amazing stuff on just a couple of acres of land”.

“We’ve never eaten better in our lives than when we moved here and that sparked the idea of doing something that would put all these small producers on a pedestal for more people to see,” he says.

Andy’s focus has always been wine and he’d amassed a large cellar of mostly European labels – mostly French and Italian – that he wanted to do something with other than drink himself (“not the most economically viable plan”). The idea began to form for a bar that would serve these Old World wines alongside the best of the Macedon Ranges – labels like Cobaw Ridge, Eastern Peake and Dilworth & Allain – and the rest of Victoria.

Meeting some local artisan food producers, like pig farmers Jonai Farm and vegetable growers Mount Franklin Organics, helped shape the food menu that would centre local products in simple Euro-style food like potato focaccia, terrines and rillettes.

Six months after they’d arrived in Daylesford they signed a lease on a pizza shop. Empty for nearly three years, it still had all its amenities, something Andy and Claire needed as they planned to get Bar Merendas up and running by themselves. Claire’s design background came in handy and the shop was transformed into a simple, cosy, timber forward space, shelves stacked with wine and theme-appropriate wine barrels and wine advertising posters. The menu – cooked by Andy and Claire – is scribbled on a blackboard every day, changing according to what produce comes through the door.

“We wanted to put local producers making nice things at the forefront of what we do at Bar Merenda,” says Andy. “But we also wanted to do it in a very casual way. We are a bar so I love people coming by for a quick vermouth on the rocks with a splash of soda and some anchovies as much as people who come in and explore the menu and the winelist for hours. It’s casual and relaxed and highlights all the reasons why we’re happy we moved to Daylesford.”

Bar Merenda

www.barmerenda.com.au

Shop 3/22/24 Howe St, Daylesford