Melbourne is one of those cities with a reputation for exemplary hospitality. People travel from far and wide to experience its food and wine scene. And after six lockdowns – 262 days of restrictions – due to the pandemic, it’s no wonder that Melbourne’s bars and restaurants have returned with vengeance.
With every bar being so different, how do you know you are at the right one? Is it the fresh breeze on the rooftop? Is it the luxe decor? The service and atmosphere? Or the food and drinks selection? Well, it’s all the above, of course!
So here’s just some of the most stylish Melbourne Bars to experience in 2022. Whether you are a local or a tourist, these bars have the vibe, service, food and drinks you’ve been looking for.
Gimlet
Finally, an Australian restaurant that’s been included on the prestigious ‘World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards’: Gimlet at Cavendish House. What a way to sail into the halfway point of this blissfully lockdown-free year, with Australia’s dining culture revelling in such splendour.
Reminiscent of 1920’s New York, Gimlet is the kind of place you want to linger, sipping on a martini while nibbling on oysters and caviar. But dessert will be your top reason to revisit, and the meticulous cocktail menu will definitely impress.
On its ‘World’s 50 Best’ debut, the CBD restaurant earned the number 84 position on the Top 100 longlist. It was also in good company, placing alongside a variety of highly regarded places from Munich and Singapore.
Bar Margaux
Bar Margaux is a Melbourne interpretation of a Parisian bistro. And it checks all the design boxes – chequerboard flooring, shiny white subway tiles, booths, wired glass dividers, and golden back bar lighting – and skillfully puts them together so that the space avoids cliché and becomes very much the right place, right time.
We can’t talk about Bar Margaux today before digging into how it was planned and built. Just under a decade of planning and 20,000 tiles make the bar one of Melbourne’s best subterranean hideouts.
The menu has the traditional French bistro fare you’d anticipate from a location with this aesthetic, finding such excellent French onion soup or reliable steak frites in a bar where the kitchen is open until 3am (and later on weekends).
Beneath Driver Lane
If you are someone who enjoys live music, cocktails, friendly-staff, and eating comfort food at 2am, Beneath Driver Lane is a basement of dreams.
Concealed in the vault of the former Money Order Office, a GPO annex, you’ll find the entrance off Driver Lane. Downstairs the bustling bar offers a domed ceiling, historic brick archways, marble accents, low-hanging pendant lights, and rope partitions, which combine to create a space that blends the old and the new.
Cocktails and technical skill are the focus of the vast drink menu. Liquid nitrogen is used to make martinis, and palo santo wood smoke is used to create the ‘Catalyst Fire’, a specialty drink.
Society
80 Collins in Melbourne is the place where you naturally gravitate to when searching for high-end bars. Just look for the elevator on the ground floor with “Society” carved in block letters. Travel up and enter the luxury vintage of the 50s.
This is a 300-seat venue designed for turning heads with Executive Chef, Martin Benn, designing his dream kitchen, while restaurateur Chris Lucas spared no expense on the opulent interior.
Sleek design and chandeliers imported from France are just some of the special touches that make Society spectacular. But it might be the angular, marble bar serving vintage cocktails that grabs your attention. This glamorous, mid-century styled bar will not disappoint on the drinks front.
Saros Bar + Dining
With a focus on relaxed dining over wine and tapas, Saros Bar & Dining offers visitors a New York-style setting. Food on the menu is fresh, earthy, full-bodied, and Mediterranean-inspired, thoughtfully chosen to appeal to a wide range of palates.
A long list of spirits, including more than twenty different scotches, ten gins, ten vodkas, and a wide variety of liqueurs, complement the menu. The wine list features wines from around the World. Cosmopolitans and Martinis will be the go-to cocktails.
The only bar and restaurant not located in Melbourne’s CBD to make the list, Saros Bar & Dining is located in Melbourne’s trendy north-west suburb of Moonee Ponds. But it’s not your typical “local”.
When searching for a great bar or restaurant in Melbourne, the options seem endless. Melbourne is an amazing city with bars on almost every corner, down every laneway and hidden in a host of basements. Start with this list and you can’t go wrong.
