Mosey Guide (mg): What is your connection to North Melbourne?

Nathan Schofield (ns): North Melbourne is where Sarah and I bought our first home together, at the beginning of 2022. So we are currently in our 5th year in North Melbourne. It was an obvious choice with her work but it was also a suburb that we felt right at home in. The convenience is second to none but the atmosphere and community is what has made us fall in love with the area and has kept us here.

We opened Bear’s Wine Bar in November 2024, but it’s not only the business that keeps us here — we’ve also stayed for the community and friendships we’ve made.

(mg) What does North Melbourne mean to you?

(ns) North Melbourne has a very special place in my heart. It reminds me a lot of Adelaide, with its wide streets and architecture. I have built a beautiful life here with my wife, and it very much feels like home now. I love that we are so close to the city, but without the hustle and bustle. So much has happened while we’ve been here, so I guess North Melbourne means prosperity to me.

(mg) Can you tell us about your journey into wine, and how it led you to opening Bear’s?

(ns) I was born in Sydney’s South-West, and grew up there until I was 10. I moved to Adelaide with my family in January of 2005 and moved to Melbourne in 2022.

I am very lucky to have a beautiful relationship with my family. I’m one of four siblings, with two older sisters, and a younger brother. I grew up in Adelaide mostly by the beach and loved the water. I enjoyed playing video games and boardgames, reading, and bike riding. I didn’t love high school but found my feet in university.

The moment that truly set me on this path came during a trip to Rockford Wines for my dad's 50th birthday. A family friend was down from Queensland that weekend, and is a Stonewall member at Rockfords. He very generously took us along for a tasting and they showed us a range of incredible wines from their back vintage. I’d been curious about wine for a long time, and often asked to try mum and dad’s wine at the dinner table. Growing up, we lived a pretty humble life as quite a large family, but after tasting through Rockford’s selection, it sparked the beginnings of my passion and curiosity for wine. I especially loved hearing about the vineyards, the soils and the winemaking process. That day, I asked the cellar door manager if you could study winemaking and, as it turns out, that was the last day I could change my preferences without being charged for it, so I did.

I began work in the wine industry in 2014, running tastings at cellar doors while I studied Viticulture and Oenology at Adelaide University. I learnt a lot about wine at university and wasn’t afraid of participating in some extra-curricular wine tastings. In my final year of uni, I worked as a Vintage Field Officer, assessing fruit quality in the Riverland for Pernod Ricard, and travelled around Switzerland and Spain for a month as part of a summer university course. I met people from all around France and Europe, as well as a bunch of winemaking students from Stellenbosch University in South Africa. I then worked in the Barossa Valley as a vineyard hand before securing my position as a vineyard operator in McLaren Vale.

In 2021, I met my now wife, Sarah, and toward the end of her contract in Adelaide she got offered a great job in Melbourne. This came at a time when I was keen to move away from the viticulture side of the industry and Melbourne seemed like the perfect opportunity to try something new.

So we moved to Melbourne almost exactly 8 years after I first decided to get into the wine industry. When moving to Melbourne I wasn’t too sure what I wanted to do, except I knew I wanted to work with people. I got some casual work in a wine bar while I figured out my next move, but ended up falling in love with hospitality! My love for wine was reinvigorated and I moved to Supernormal where I worked as a sommelier, before working in a few other venues while I set up Bear’s with my mate, Austin Kanget. I’m now thrilled to say I’ve been running Bear’s Wine Bar for over a year with Austin and head chef, Gareth Thomson. While it often feels like we’re running a not-for-profit business, our team has excitingly grown over this time and we now have an awesome crew of 11 keeping the show running.

(mg) How does being in North Melbourne shape what you do?

(ns) As I’m sure everyone has heard so often, North Melbourne is described as a small country town, and I couldn’t agree more. To me, as a small business operating here, that means listening to the guests who come through your door and the community around you. Understanding what people are enjoying and what needs changing hugely shapes the way we run Bear’s Wine Bar, as well as providing exceptional service and staying true to what hospitality is all about.

Sharing a bit of ourselves as we welcome guests into the bar is also really important to me, which is why you’ll see paintings by my wife’s grandma on the walls, Austin’s famous lava lamp by the turn table, and why I converted our wines-by-the-glass list to be exclusively South Australian wines while we celebrated our first birthday — showcasing that connection to where I grew up and learned to love wine.

(mg) What makes North Melbourne different from other places you’ve lived or worked?

(ns) North Melbourne has a real charm about it. It feels like a hidden gem that is still on the cusp of being fully discovered. More and more quality hospitality establishments are popping up around the place with diverse offerings. It is such an unassuming suburb and can feel quite sleepy at times, but also has such a vibrancy that brings everyone together.

(mg) What does your perfect day in North Melbourne look like?

(ns) My wife and I would start the day taking our golden retriever, Agnes, for a walk. We would beeline down Queensberry Street to Tone for a coffee before, grabbing some pastries from Bobby’s Bakery on the way to Eades Dog Park. Assuming the sun was shining, we’d head down to Errol Street Reserve to play some boule, and read a book in the sun. We’d then stop at the Courthouse for lunch and a powwow with the staff there, who are always so friendly. Off to Bobbie Peels for a pint and a seat out the front in their parklet, followed by a bottle of wine. They have such a great wine list! We will definitely be hitting up Manze for dinner and a cocktail, and line it all up with a bit of stand-up comedy at the Comic’s Lounge to finish the night off with a few good laughs.

(mg) Who are the other makers, creators, or people in the neighbourhood that inspire you?

(ns) Phil Gijsbers definitely comes to mind. He currently part-owns Bobbie Peels and achieved so much before this. I feel that every couple of months I learn about some other venture he helped set up in his time, and I am probably yet to know everything he has accomplished. Phil has been an incredible support and source of inspiration for me since day one of Bear’s, popping in to say hello when we were still in the building process. If you’re keen to hear more about Phil, I’d encourage you to join Bobbie Peels’ Wednesday night run club and strike up a conversation with the man himself — he’s always friendly, business savvy, and loves hospitality.

Rusty and Ryan who part-own and run the Courthouse Hotel also inspire me. They too have a rich and admirable background in hospitality and have brought so much life to North Melbourne with the Courty. They’re hard working, generous and encouraging and, despite their busy lives, never turn me away when I seek their guidance or advice.

(mg) What are you working on right now that excites you?

We have lots happening at the moment which is pretty exciting in and of itself! We’re working toward opening our doors 7 days a week. We’re also joining forces with Sam at Bobbie’s Bakery to create a delicious lunch special for our Friday–Sunday lunch trade.

In March we’re putting on charcoal chook night for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival too! For two nights only, we’re elevating the cheap and cheerful icons of the neighbourhood charcoal chook shop that we all know and love. Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is all about celebrating Victorian producers, so I’m super excited to be planning a wine pairing that I’m calling the V-Line Wine Train — pairing booze from producers that are mostly accessible using the public transport system in Victoria, in the hope that people enjoy the wines these producers make, and are encouraged to go and support them further by taking a little day trip to visit them.

(mg) What is the most memorable trip you’ve taken?

(ns) My honeymoon. We spent about 5 days in Portugal, mostly in Lisbon and Porto, then we walked the last 126kms of the Portuguese Camino de Santiago before indulging in a boujee long weekend in San Sebastian.

Highlights of the trip would be the seaside town of Cascais. We stopped here on the way back from the castles of Sintra. Praia da Rainha was stunning — golden sands with some rocky outcrops that stretched from the shore out into the water. A great place for a dip in the sun after hiking up the mountain to see the UNESCO Heritage Listed castles and palaces of Sintra.

The hilly streets of Lisbon were a great training opportunity before the Camino, and the endless tiled houses and architecture made you forget you were walking up a street with an 18% gradient!

We weren’t in Portugal at the right time of year to witness the waves at Nazaré, nevertheless we stopped there for a few hours on the way up to Porto and took the Funicular up to the famous bluff that looks out over the water and the old town.

Porto was gorgeous! We were recommended a small restaurant on the banks of the Douro river, on the Spanish side of the Ponte Luís and I think a photo of me sitting there with a glass of port in one hand and a holiday cigarette in the other captured the vibe perfectly.

Our train to the beginning of our walk was delayed about 3 or 4 hours, but the walk was incredible nonetheless. The couple that hosted us in O Porriño were so kind and our only wish is that we had more time to share a few bottles of wine with them.

For the rest of the trip, we stayed in a string of Airbnb’s. It was our honeymoon after all, so we opted not to stay in hostels. I could write a short novel on the rest of our Camino but a few key moments need to be mentioned:

1. We met some incredible people along the way, including the wife of a diplomat in Pontevedre. We noticed her and her friend sitting at a table not far from us. She was clearly a good friend of the owner of the restaurant and was playfully giving him grief and having a good laugh.
Two Irish women who have been friends for a very long time, and who keep each other company after the passing of their husbands.
A wonderful husband and wife from Queensland, who are McDonald’s franchisees. They sat next to us in a market in Santiago de Compostela. We eventually got chatting to them, and I shared my prawn dish with them as they were really excited to get the dish, but it was sold out. They finished their lunch before us and said goodbye. Not long after that we went to pay the bill and the server shared that they had paid for our meal. A very special moment.
2. When we arrived in San Sebastian I noticed a friend of mine had just left San Sebastian and gone to Bayonne, just over the border in France. He is a Georgian winemaker I met while growing grapes in the Barossa Valley. He was a roommate of mine during his vintage there, and he was travelling through Spain with a French sparkling wine consultant. So we spontaneously bought a return bus ticket to Bayonne, and his colleague was born there so showed us around town, and gave us the history of the area. We all had dinner at one of his favourite restaurants and then jumped on the bus back to San Sebastian.
3. I can’t leave out our dining experience at Kokotxa Jatetxea. A Michelin starred seafood restaurant with seamless service, and unbelievably great food and wine. We were speechless for most of our dining experience. We followed that up at a speak-easy with some phenomenal cocktails and a home-made Mezcal. An older couple walked into the speak-easy with this bottle of Mezcal and the traditional Mezcal cups, made from the gourd of Crescentia trees. That was something like his 3rd last bottle he owned, as he sold his property in Mexico and moved to San Sebastian, no longer making Mezcal and Tequila.

(mg) Where is your next travel destination?

(ns) Christchurch! This will be my first time to ‘Chch’ to check out Sarah’s home town. The trip will be a mixture of business, with some wine tastings around the area, and fun — an opportunity to catch up with some of Sarah’s family and friends, with a few games of Rugby with her dad. I’m definitely the nerd in our relationship, so I daresay we will also see a few Lord of the Ring’s film locations while we are there.

(mg) How has travel changed the way you see the world?

(ns) I think travelling around the world has made me more curious about Australia and the history we have here. I feel we are so often driven to leave Australia and go overseas to experience different cultures, when we are barely connected to or understand the oldest continuous living culture we have here. I have loved the little amount of overseas travel I have done so far, and wouldn’t change it for the world, but I need to start ticking off a few local things before I run out of time — like the Daintree Forest, where my mum got chased by a Cassowary, Exmouth with the whale sharks, the Kimberly, and Broome which has the most amount of clear evening skies in Australia (and for obvious reasons, some of the best stargazing in the southern hemisphere).

(mg) If you could recommend anywhere in the world for a mosey, where would it be?

(ns) I can’t say I have done a lot of travel in my time, however the most calm and relaxed I have been was in the south of England, in a small town called Kingsdown. It’s a quaint old fishing village that has a few pubs, as most English villages do, including one right on the beach! If you like seafood, you can go prawning on the stony beaches you find there, and a lot of locals own little shacks — similar to those in Brighton and further along the Mornington Peninsula — which they store their prawn nets and beach paraphernalia in. You can take a stroll along the chalky cliffs towards Dover looking out over the channel towards France. Then double back through the golf course if you’re good at dodging the stray balls here and there. You can also bike to the beautiful town of Deal, a far larger and more developed town compared to Kingsdown, however still maintaining its character with cobblestone streets, plenty of very old buildings, and 3 castles built around it! I didn’t spend enough time there to really check the place out, or the multitude of pubs, but the Ship Inn was a great find. Very cosy and intimate, with very affordable pints of pulled British ale! The old jetty has a cafe at the end of it and there is something quite relaxing about watching the local fishermen cast out and try their luck for some dinner. A short drive to Dover Castle is a must as well. It seems that it often doesn’t get the credit it deserves, for its integral role in the evacuation of Dunkirk. I highly recommended the tours of the underground fort and underground hospital.

Local knowledge

Favourite local ingredient or product:
Bobbie’s Bakery plain croissant. Best in Melbourne in my opinion.

What to do beyond Errol Street:
Check out Queensberry Street! The unofficial main street of North Melbourne ;) There is so much going on and popping up along here.

Best coffee in the neighbourhood:
Tone

Favourite shop:
Casa Verde Florist (they did the flowers for our wedding!)

Go-to spot to reset or find inspiration:
When I need to reset in summer, the water is where you’ll find me. Any beach, water hole, lake, or dam that’s swimmable, I will seek out. I find it such a refreshing and calming experience to take the plunge. Some of my most joyous memories from my childhood and adolescence are spending time at the beach. It was always a way to escape my anxieties and anything that was getting me down at school or at home.

The stressors of owning a business ebb and flow. I can have extended periods of time where I am excited about what’s to come with the wine bar, and feel I’m managing the delicate juggle of work and life, only to then find myself wondering if this was ever the right decision. My wife is my biggest cheerleader and her encouragement always gets me through. But sometimes inspiration walks in the front door of the restaurant in the form of a return guest that dines and tells you for the umpteenth time how much they love the place, the service, the food, and the booze.

We also try our best to get out and dine at other restaurants, wine bars, and pubs. When we get the chance to step away from the restaurant, you’ll most often find us sitting at the bar of a venue, soaking in the joy of dining out. When we experience fantastic hospitality at other venues it reminds me why I do what I do, and I feel encouraged to push on.

Favourite time of day in North Melbourne:
About 45–60 minutes before sunset in summer! The sun shines directly down Queensberry Street and the silhouette of our logo is cast onto the wall just by one of our bay window booth tables.

Neighbourhood must-eats:
The Courthouse cheeseburger

North Melbourne’s best kept secret:
Meat Market! Such a dynamic venue that supports local and international artists, with a bunch of theatre, musicals, cabaret, musicians and dance. They also host a few hospitality, food and beverage events. I can’t say I know what North Melbourne’s ‘best kept secret’ is, but I’d say this venue is underrated and under-discovered, so may be the closest thing to it.

24 hours in North Melbourne:
First stop would be Cham in West Melbourne for a Vietnamese Egg Coffee. One of the owners, Tony, is a mate of mine from Supernormal and is using ethically sourced coffee beans. After a quick trip to the Victoria Markets for some picnic supplies, the next stop would be Lerderderg State Park. Just 50 minutes from North Melbourne, it’s perfectly placed for a half-day trip. There is a great loop track that first follows the Lerderderg River to Grahams Dam, which is a perfect spot for a dip and a picnic. There is a gruelling ascent at one point of the loop, which gives you 200 meters of elevation, but it’s worth it for the view at the top.

We’d then head back to North Melbourne for a pint of Sailors Grave Lager at Bobbie Peels, before heading to Movida on Hosier Lane for an exceptional dinner with outstanding wines to match, definitely dabbling in a few cheeky sherries.

Slight change of pace after dinner, with a trip to Cherry Bar in the hope of catching a bit of rock ‘n roll. Then back past The Drunken Poet for a night cap of Guinness and a dram of whiskey.