Low Key

Riccardo Rantino and business partner Toby Marsh had been describing their new bar concept as “low key” ever since they had the idea to open a venue together, so the name stuck.

There are two beers on tap: a Bruno Bitter from Abbotsford’s Bodriggy Brewing Co. is the mainstay. The second changes weekly and there are 18 local bottles and tinnies on the list. Six rotating wines come from neighbours Samuel Pepys Wine Merchant.

Don’t expect to get a whisky sour here: the menu was designed with “the poor guy at the back of the line of a hundred people who just wants to order a beer” in mind. There’s a Negroni and a spritz, and stuff you don’t need a shaker to mix.

The site was (obviously) originally a house. And when there are DJs playing it feels like a house party. There’s a front room and a back room – complete with mantlepiece – plus a decked backyard with plant beds and festooned Edison bulbs. Faded Turkish rugs over polished floorboards inside give it that extra slug of familiarity.

The space is devoid of knick-knacks or decorations (bar one stag horn fern on the wall), and the fit-out features lots of recycled timber. The bar itself was made out of the building’s former wooden staircase, which they pulled down to build a new bathroom.

If you’re hungry, pizza from Primo can be delivered on foot from across the road. The site’s former kitchen? Now a DJ booth.