Two glasses of wine, one orange and one pale red, on a worn timber bar by candlelight, with a wood-fired oven glowing behind.

Gertrude Street, Fitzroy

Victorian wine.Dinner off the fire.

Name: Ember & Vine
Address: Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, VIC, 3065, AU
Telephone: 03 5550 8810

A wine bar and wood-fired kitchen run by Lou, who cooks, and Ari, who pours. Twenty wines open by the glass, share plates from the coals, and a bar kept for whoever walks in.

Request a table Read the menu

Open Wed to Sunbar seats kept for walk-ins

Walk-ins welcome

We keep the bar for walking in.

Tables in the dining room can be requested ahead. The seats at the bar never go on the booking sheet, so if you're passing down Gertrude Street, come in, pull up a stool and see what's open.

How to find us

Tonight at the bar

Fitzroy

Open Wed to Sun

Mon and TueClosed
Wed and Thu5pm to 11pm
Fri and Sat12pm to midnight
Sun12pm to 9pm

Call the bar03 5550 8810

first in, best stool

From the fire

Plates for the middle of the table.

Lou cooks everything over a wood fire: bread blistered on the coals, leeks charred black in their skins, fish and lamb taken slowly. Order a few, then a few more.

Sliced wood-grilled flank steak with a disc of smoked marrow butter and watercress on a timber board, a fire burning behind.

A few plates

the leeks. trust us

Fire-blistered sourdough, cultured butter9
Coal-roasted leeks, hazelnut, brown butter19
Grilled octopus, smoked paprika, salsa verde29
Flank steak, smoked bone marrow butter46
Lamb shoulder for two, flatbread, pickles88

The whole menu

By the numbers

Small room, long list, one fire.

200bottles on the list, give or take
20wines open by the glass
60seats in the dining room and at the bar
14chairs around one table in the back room

ask Ari what's open tonight

On Gertrude Street since 2022

Lou cooks.Ari pours.

Ember & Vine opened in 2022 with two people and two jobs. Lou runs the fire. Ari runs the list.

The wine is natural and small-producer, and most of it is Victorian: made by people a couple of hours up the road, poured next to food that tastes of smoke. Ask Ari what's good tonight and you'll get a straight answer.

A glass of cloudy orange wine glowing by candlelight on a dark timber bar beside an unlabelled bottle. — orange wine? ask

Distance from the glass

Victoria, poured by the glass.

Most of the list comes from four regions you could drive to before dinner. Each one tastes like its own patch of the state, and each has a road out of town.

Gertrude Street, Fitzroy

Yarra Valley
About 1 hr
Out the Maroondah Highway
Chardonnay, pinot noir and syrah, some of it left on skins.
Macedon Ranges
About 1 hr
Up the Calder Freeway
Sparkling and pinot noir from one of the coolest corners of the state.
Gippsland
About 2 hrs
East on the Princes Freeway
Pinot noir and pinot gris, some of it turned orange on skins.
Beechworth
About 3 hrs
Up the Hume Freeway
Chardonnay and nebbiolo from high granite country.

Rows of bare vines on rolling Victorian hills at dusk, with gum trees silhouetted against an orange sky. — worth every kilometre

A long timber table set for fourteen with candles, stoneware plates and wine glasses in a brick-walled room.

Private dining

Fourteen chairs. One long table.

Birthdays, long lunches, the team dinner that deserves better than a function room. The back room seats 14 around a single table, with the fire and the list close by.

Seats: Up to 14
Table: One, long
Food: Off the fire
Wine: From Ari's list

Ask about the back room

Two ways in