Adam Robinson, founder of Burnside favourite Lockwood General, is bringing cocktails, small plates and hundreds of bottles of wine to a 60-seater space on King William Road.

Chef Adam Robinson wants to bring something different to King William Road.

The co-founder and chef behind the buzzy Burnside café Lockwood General is opening up new wine bar Alt, based on the knowledge he has of his local area of Hyde Park.

“I’ve lived in the area for, like, eight, nine years,” Adam says. “I love this area, I love this street, and I know exactly what it’s missing and what I think will work well on it.”

Alt will be a drinks-focussed venue, featuring a 200-bottle-strong wine wall that will run the gamut of styles.

“Natties sitting next to some dusty old Barossa Shirazes,” Adam says.

“It is such a broad type of market here, as well. You have to appeal to a wide market.

“But I like lots of different styles of wines as well. I don’t want to lock ourselves into a niche where we’re just selling naturals, just youthful wines. Really just having a bit of everything.

“Being deliberately eclectic is what’s tying it together.”

The venue will also have a tight list of cocktails (designed by Alt’s venue manage, Courtney Price), which Adam says is a Hyde Park blind spot.

“Elegant, elevated cocktails – no one’s really doing them on this strip,” he says. “So for a special occasion, or if you’re out having a really lovely dinner for a special occasion, you can pop in here.”

Wine bar WIP

Adam promises alternative takes on familiar favourites (leaning into the name ‘Alt’), an attitude that can be seen in the venue’s take on an Espresso Martini.

“Courtney’s really into cocktails, which is how that cocktail focus came about,” Adam says. “She’s got an Alt ‘Sprotini, with vodka, cold-brew coffee, buffalo cream, dulce de leche and salt. Just taking a bit of a spin on a classic.”

It wouldn’t be an Adam Robinson venue without a considered food menu. The chef plans for drinks to be Alt’s primary focus, but has created a small-plates offering to match.

The menu will be split into lighter and heavier meals, with the lighter end of the spectrum featuring items such as miso devilled eggs with Golden Curry Kewpie and Shichimi Togarashi, scallops with green tomato and shiso and potato croquettes with sumac. One of the heavier offerings will be lamb tartare with white kimchi, nashi and duck yolk.

“It’s my style of eating,” Adam says. “I often go to Nido and don’t actually eat a pasta. I’ll go with friends and just order six share plates. Just avoiding FOMO of ordering a main and not liking it.”

Alt will open sometime around the end of May, start of June, and Adam hopes the venue will become known as a starting or ending point for locals’ evenings out.

“I think putting yourself in a good mood to carry through the rest of your night is a great way to start the evening, but then also if you’ve had a great experience somewhere else, not having to stop your night cold and head home when you’re really enjoying yourself,” he says.

“If you’ve come from Glenelg and you’ve had a really beautiful dinner at Sho Sho and you don’t want to go to the city, you’ve got to call your night early, and it can be a real dampener.”

This slab will soon be a communal table

Alt will seat around 60 people, half inside and half out front of the venue. It will operate from midday ‘til late on Fridays and Saturdays and 4pm ‘til late Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

While Adam has ideas for how he’d like people to use the space, he plans on letting his clientele dictate what the bar will become.

“If we’re finding we need to open earlier because people are finding they’re having business meetings here on weekdays, then we’ll definitely accommodate that,” he says.

Alt’s graphic identity comes from Studio Maja, but will not feature prominently in the space. Adam, who took the lead in the venue’s interior design, has kept the colour palette minimal, with only a few flourishes.

A large, live-edge timber bar will run through the middle of the space as a communal table, and there will be a five-metre-tall ficus longifolia at the front of the space. Alex Bellas will paint a mural that will sweep across the wall and ceiling towards the back of the space, where the bar is located. And running along the northern wall will be seven metres of wine shelves.

“Essentially, the theory is everything is black and white because the only colour in the venue is going to be the labels on the bottles. And that constantly evolves as we change stock,” Adam says.

“I’ve had a company in New South Wales custom-design a heritage tessellated tile for the front door as well, so from the moment you step into the place, I want people to know there’s been a decision behind everything that has been done.”

Alt will have about 30 seats outside

There’s only a little over a month to go until Alt is set to launch, but Adam feels well-prepared. He’d done a lot of thinking about what Hyde Park needs in a bar during the process of conceptualising Willy’s, at the other end of King William Road. He left that project before it opened due to creative differences with his business partners.

Alt will be all of this thinking, distilled.

“I’m doing something that will essentially be somewhere that I like to go as a local,” Adam says.

“We can still be a destination for other people who don’t live in Hyde Park, or the area, and I want it to be similar to Lockwood in that it has a great local support network and it’s also a destination venue.

“I just can’t be bothered going all over the city and hopping between venues. I want to just have a nice evening in my little bubble,” he laughs.

Alt is located at 151 King William Road, Hyde Park, and is slated to open by early June.

Follow the bar’s progress on Instagram.