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North Fitzroy Arms

Where: 296 Rae St, North Fitzroy

Phone: 0422 222 767

Internet: www.northfitzroyarms.com.au

SCORE: 15.2/20

AUGUST 1

VENUE: As long as inner-north hotels in Fitzroy/Carlton etc, have held an attraction to pub goers far beyond their postcodes, at the forefront of this enduring love is the North Fitzroy Arms.

While there has been a delectable grunginess in look to the majority of them (never change Tramway), there’s something about the NFA that always has had a more pleasing aesthetic that enticed you to come in.

The sprawling homestead visual on the corner of Rae/Reid Streets never wearies; the public bar remains firmly in its footy roots bearing a love letter to its nearest neighbours Fitzroy and Carlton, the former adorned with the boys of old Lions hanging from the walls.

Its sweeping front bar demands a group of you to breast it and take it all in. New broom for sure has swept through but retention of its feel and spirit is its calling card.

The small but cute beer garden has been a mainstay, looking better than ever. Quiet pool tables stand unobtrusively away from the main action. Everything in its place.

But the real win is the dining room and what has been achieved is rightsizing the room to create a warm and congenial space when formerly somewhat remote and cold.

Its set out elevates this to one of Melbourne’s better pub spaces for eating; cloth napkins, butchers paper on linen tablecloths, better cutlery with staff but a heartbeat away to wait on you.

Bright and airy, this one can burn 2-3 hours with friends before you realise the time has evaporated.

Food and drink* has great touches to it, the price for food, a little higher justified given the quality and love going into it. This is not a menu to arrive here with pre-conceived notions of what to have. Backed up by daily specials and you have the right mix.

(*Wine list is impressive but like so so many pubs, price per glass/bottle is rapidly increasing this year with few options beneath $15pg/65/btle)

TAB: No

Pokies: No

Footy: Yes

Starters are priced between $14-18, new school cauliflower and gruyere croquettes (three/$14) or old school sausage rolls, tomato sauce (three/$16).

A first timer for me is squid ink salami, pickled green tomatoes, $18. All easing eating.

Mains go up a notch, supported by a ripping range of specials; rolled pork roast, all the trimmings at $34, a monstrous schnitzel holstein, veal cutlet, fried egg, anchovies, lemon, brown-butter sauce, $48, but easily shared, or a traditional service of pork and sage sausages, mash, sugar loaf cabbage, onion, gravy, $33.

Beer taps number eight or so, CD well served at $7.5/pot, with Balter Easy Haze, Wolf of the Willows XPA, but two in support.

Small list of wines, local/imports, Idiom Wines Pinot Noir, $15pg/69 from Central Victoria, great drinking and very good value.

HIGHLIGHT/S:

Beef cheek and ale pie, mash, pea soup, house tomato sauce. Perfect cold winter’s day fare. Proper pie, fully casing, deep flavours and wonderful house made sauce. Pie, beer, footy: A magnificent trifecta.

Something Different to Eat: Retired dairy cow cheeseburger, chips, $29. Don’t be misled by the title. Retired in the production of milk, goes back to pasture and to then provides beef. And it is very tasty and most sustainable practice. You will start to see it more frequently.

Surcharges: 15 per cent public holidays.

Summary: And so the NFA rolls on, different directions through its journey (at one time, a pub specialising in Hungarian pub grub, another with footy legend and publican Percy Jones at the helm).

This iteration is very, very good.

But this is the standard that is demanded of the hospitality industry in Fitzroy. No one has it to themselves and the competition between pubs here to win hearts and minds has never been more intense.

All pubs here pass muster: But The North Fitzroy Arms sits among the best.