Scholé

Scholé is the 10-seat chef-driven wine bar of Luke Burgess — a Tasmanian native chef, trained at Garagistes (the influential Hobart wine bar that closed in 2015) and at Quay in Sydney — opened in 2018 on Liverpool Street in the Hobart CBD. The space is a converted heritage confectionery with hand-carved Tasmanian-cedar walls and exactly ten seats at a single curved counter facing directly into the open kitchen.

The cuisine is contemporary Japanese-inspired with deep Tasmanian regional sourcing. Signatures rotate seasonally but typically include a tamagoyaki with shiitake; an albacore on crisp Swedish crackers; a hand-cut Tasmanian-salmon tartare with Japanese ponzu; a wood-fired Bass Strait octopus with green olive and Japanese pickle; a Tasmanian-truffle dashi broth.

The wine list is one of the most interesting in Australia — 200 references built around Tasmanian and Japanese natural-wine smallholders, plus a serious sake programme that runs to twenty-plus daiginjo and junmai-daiginjo bottlings.

The 10-seat counter format is the experience — total privacy at the counter, a constant chef-diner conversation, and a kitchen pacing that runs leisurely for over three hours. Burgess himself runs the kitchen alone on most evenings.

Scholé is the easy-first-date or solo-dining room in Hobart — the 10-seat counter format is the closest the city comes to a chef's-table experience, the Japanese-inspired register is genuinely distinctive, and the chef-driven format is unusually intimate. Book the counter two-top.