At first blush, Faye could be just another colour-by-numbers inner-north venue playing wine bar-bingo. Jars of fruit pickling and veg fermenting? Tick. Turntable behind the bar? Tick. Chefs cooking with fire? Tick. Esoteric wine list, a love of offal and a quorum of beards? Tick, tick, you’d better believe it.

Under one of the apartment blocks that have devoured Brunswick East, Rhen Dodd (of Ephemera Wines) has teamed up with chefs Daniel Naylor and Marcus Dimabuyo (both ex-Aubergine in Canberra) to open Faye and it’s much less cynical and a lot more likeable than a hundred other sterile box-ticking bars.

Much of that has to do with the very clever things coming out of the kitchen. Such as terrific mussels, smoked then pickled in their juices and served with roasted capsicum. It’s mop-the-bowl good and, at just $8, a bargain to boot.

The menu changes daily but might feature house-made ricotta infused with fig leaf, giving it green, almost nutty characters, and served with roasted grapes and end-of-summer tomatoes.

Those jars a-fermenting add both a homely touch and cool cred to the simple-yet-handsome room, but they’re no mere props. The pickled chard served with roasted beetroot, for instance, is gobsmackingly good – crunchy, sweet-sharp and mouth-puckeringly moreish.

Euro-leaning wines complement the fare with flair, Dodd quick to suggest a minerally central Victorian chardonnay as a foil to those beets, a textural Eden Valley riesling to race alongside one of the best pastas I’ve eaten in ages. Garganelli – a ribbed cylindrical pasta that’s cooked on point – comes tossed in a sticky tripe ragù, with grilled octopus tentacles on top. At once decadent and poised, rich and refined, it’s offally good.

Faye might look every bit the typical Brunswick wine bar, but it walks the talk with creative cooking and clever drinks. More buzzworthy than buzzwordy, for elevated wine dining Faye is a win.