The 12 Best Bars in Melbourne

Caretaker's Cottage

A public bar in the church caretaker's old cottage: opened 2022 behind Wesley Church by Matt Stirling, Ryan Nordics and Rob Libecans, Caretaker's Cottage does 'smart drinks, top tunes & fun times', freezer-cold martinis on a custom gin, well-poured Guinness (the martini-and-Guinness boilermaker is the move), and a monthly-rotating list. No.19 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025 and The Best Bar in Australasia. It was a Top 4 finalist for Best International Cocktail Bar at the 2026 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.

Byrdi

Byrdi is a bar that is uniquely Australian, where the local environment informs the drinks. Led by award-winning bartender Luke Whearty. The bar holds No. 91 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025.

Above Board

Twelve seats around a shared American-walnut table, and Hayden Lambert serving you personally: Above Board is 'more dinner party than cocktail bar', hidden up a laneway behind Beermash on Smith Street. Classics and originals, no bookings, groups kept small. No.44 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2021 and back on the extended list at No.100 in 2024.

Apollo Inn

An intimate cocktail bar occupying part of Cavendish House on the corner of Flinders Lane and Russell Street, opened by the team behind Gimlet. The name references a Melbourne inn that operated on the site from 1844. The bar focuses on classic cocktail service alongside a short food menu.

Bar Americano

A very small standing-room-only bar in a laneway off Howey Place, serving only classic cocktails. The venue is styled after the American Bar tradition of the early twentieth century, and seating is limited to a booked tasting menu.

Bar Bellamy

A neighborhood bistro and cocktail bar on Rathdowne Street in Carlton. Both the food and drinks menus change seasonally, and the room includes communal seating for walk-ins. It trades from late afternoon into the early hours most nights.

Bar Liberty

A wine bar on Johnston Street in Fitzroy that also serves food, cocktails, beer, sake and cider. The venue includes a courtyard bar called Drinkwell and an upstairs private dining room seating up to twenty. A set-menu lunch service runs on Sundays.

Beneath Driver Lane

'Melbourne's underground home of whisky, blues and late-night revelry': Beneath Driver Lane fills a basement off a CBD laneway with more than 500 whiskies, precision cocktails and live blues three nights a week, with Baby Driver, the vinyl listening bar upstairs, spinning 70s funk and soul over pizza and wine.

Black Pearl

A Fitzroy institution since 2002, Black Pearl is the neighborhood bar with global reach, credited with fostering some of the best talent the Australian bar scene has produced, named Best Bar in Australasia 2018 and No.30 on the World's 50 Best that year. Downstairs stays inclusive and unbookable until 3am; The Attic upstairs takes the private functions.

Bouvardia

A 'modern experimental cocktail bar and exhibition space' two floors above Bourke Street, Bouvardia runs drinks on local produce, seasonality and gastronomic process, some ingredients take weeks of preparation, so the list flexes with the lab. The mid-century room doubles as a rotating gallery for local artists.

Order this: Kill Dill — akvavit, tomato, kvass, miso

Eau de Vie

Melbourne's 1920s Prohibition den hides down Malthouse Lane: theatrical serves, owner Sven Almenning's Smokey Rob Roy arrives under a cloud of wood smoke, a hidden Whisky Room behind a bookcase with rare bottles and lockers, and late-night dining from the Speakeasy Group (Mjølner, Nick & Nora's, Pearl Diver).

Order this: Smokey Rob Roy — Talisker & Highland whiskies, Ron Zacapa 23, house sweet vermouth, orange bitters, wood smoke

Gimlet

A restaurant and bar from Andrew McConnell in Cavendish House, at the corner of Russell Street and Flinders Lane. It serves lunch and dinner seven days, with brunch at weekends and supper service on Friday and Saturday. The same group operates the adjoining Apollo Inn cocktail bar.