News flash. Eating burgers in train carriages above Melbourne is no longer uber cool, nor is the idea of sculling horns of beer Viking-style beneath our city’s murky depths.

For an arresting speakeasy experience, now you can clink chablis and Champagne in Coburg’s famous clink, Pentridge Prison.

The former home of bad boy crims Chopper Read and serial killer Julian Knight has been given the ultimate glow-up, transitioning from spooky bluestone to whiz-bang entertainment hub seemingly overnight.

Watch a movie on the big- screen, get a massage, sink beers in the sun, or find a cell, I mean, hotel room to rest your head. It’s also the home of new hospo outfits restaurant North and Common and posh wine bar Olivine. But this ain’t a conventional bar.

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The entire 100-seater bar lives in Ned Kelly’s old home, the B Division block. Play prisoner for the night, drinking in the surrounds of your own cell while you’re watered and fed. The OG prison stone walls remain, with a sleek modern bar installed in the room’s beating heart, and kaleidoscopic-coloured carpet lining the corridors leading to the cells.

Superstar South Australian sommelier Liinaa Berry (Mount Lofty Estate) was given the keys to the slammer, stocking rare and wonderful back-vintage pours from here and abroad before her departure. Her mission, to celebrate and educate, explaining the biblical length list dubbed the Book of Wine, deserving of its own free tipple to ease selection nerves.

It’s unpretentiously sorted by style over variety. Maybe you’ll go for something fresh and fruity, or fly through the archives of notable Loire Valley producer Domaine de la Chevalerie’s regal cabernet franc. For a little extra dosh, you can sip premium pours from local and French faves by the glass.

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Not into wine? Beer, sake, cocktails and some non-alch stuff suffice.

North and Common head chef Mark Glenn is in the kitchen, rustling up small bites to tide you over for something more substantial next door. Hockey puck-sized rostis ($8) slathered in white taramasalata and salmon roe are solid booze-soakers, but their hefty size throws the whole potato-to-topping ratio out of whack.

Leaf-shaped brown butter tuiles aren’t apt vessels for scooping airy chicken liver parfait ($18) without breaking but, man, are they pretty and that parfait delicious. Tassie sea urchin ($14) splayed over a fried Jerusalem artichoke sings of the sea, as does the raw scallop tart ($14) zapping with yuzu gel.

While that horseradish-showered wagyu skirt steak, $24 for 80g, works wonderfully with the juicy tart Ravensworth Sangiovese, it craves a warm hunk of sourdough to mop up a reduction made with mustard and its own juices.

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I’d hoped the sourdough riding alongside the “fancy ham”, ahem, dried capocollo and noix de jambon with stracciatella ($20), would be my yeasty saviour though that was quickly dashed when even more flimsy crackers landed at the table. Give ’em a full sentence with no parole for that one.

Sure the food needs a few tweaks, and a solid bread to line the tum, but Olivine’s wine and vibe is my idea of a criminally good time.

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