I’d need a notepad as weighty as Rik Waller to scribe all that I love about Melbourne, a new pop-up on Fitzroy’s Smith Street could save me the time. Collaboration is key here, as is the creative spirit that cornerstones the city – when the local council told renowned bottleshop (that’s an off license to us pommies) folk Blackhearts & Sparrows that they couldn’t open up their newly acquired space until the new year, they didn’t get angry, they got busy.
Roping in the brains behind Flour Market and Foolscap Studio, Sarah Booth and our pal Adele Winteridge respectively, the collective minds have transformed a white elephant into a venue that screams Melbourne from the rooftops. Adele’s upcycling flair sees tyres become table supports, planters, beer buckets – comely lighting illuminates a space where starkness and edge duel quietly with warmth and grace. If you can take your eyes away from the space itself for just one moment (you can do it…), the needs of your paunch will be suitably dealt with by Melbourne’s current street food don, Raph Rashid. Food trucks are to Rashid what models are to Mick Jagger and, leaving a string of them in his wake, Black Market sees the trucktrepreneur behind the hotplates of a traditional kitchen for the first time.
Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration – style, style, style. Black Market bottles up the scent of Melbourne’s creative zeitgeist like a virtuoso perfumer at the top of his game. Dripping further splendour intravenously into the arms of Black Market, the peeps behind Everyday Coffee will be dropping by, along with a bevy of DJs and plenty more besides. Here’s hoping bottleshop maestros Blackhearts & Sparrows have second thoughts come the new year…
