The 22 Best Places to Drink in Melbourne

1. The 50 #19 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Bar Team
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Rob Libecans

Andrew McConnell's fine dining room inside the grand Cavendish House on Russell Street turns on an open fire grill and dry-aged Victorian and South Australian beef, which landed Gimlet a spot on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list. The room manages to feel glamorous without feeling stiff, and the wine list reads like someone actually thought about what goes with the food rather than just buying everything.

1. World's 101 Best #62 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Tucked into a Melbourne shopping complex in a way that makes passersby do a double-take, Byrdi is a cocktail bar built around seasonality and local ingredients handled with the kind of precision that blurs the line between bar and kitchen lab. The team behind Singapore's Operation Dagger runs the show, and the drinks follow an almost culinary logic. It landed on the World's 50 Best Bars list, which tells you the curious head-twist is worth acting on.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 #91 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – APAC

Champagne sabrage lessons are on the curriculum at this quietly chic Fitzroy wine bar, which says something about the crowd's commitment. The wine list is the real point, organized by style and leaning into macerated whites, orange wines, and chilled reds alongside the expected classics. The cocktail list is small and a little kooky, which is exactly right. Everything, down to the coffee beans, is sourced with the kind of care that borders on obsessive.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The Art Deco fixtures cast a warm amber glow over off-white walls and chestnut wood, and the whole room reads like a 1950s New York neighbourhood joint that somehow landed in Carlton. Capitano is an Italian bar where the drinks are the point, though the pasta and pizza pull their weight too. Difford's Guide gives it five stars, which for a corner spot dressed this modestly is a mild plot twist.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The New York Times 2019 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Rob Libecans
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New International Cocktail Bar

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – APAC

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Two large communal tables do the socializing for you at this Carlton cocktail bar, where the menu shifts a few times a week because only a limited run of each drink gets made. The name nods to the French for "beautiful friend," and the room takes that seriously, feeling less like a bar you've wandered into and more like a dinner party someone else is hosting. A good fit for people who don't mind talking to strangers.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – APAC

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – APAC

Twenty-four seats tucked inside a heritage building in Chinatown, One or Two is a late-night cocktail bar that borrows its soul from the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi: warm wood, minimal fuss, the feeling that nothing is permanent and you should probably order another drink. The bartender behind it modeled the whole thing on a Tokyo midnight-diner TV series, and the vibe tracks, intimate and a little cinematic.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A back bar stocked with around 350 bottles, ten new ones arriving each week, tells you everything about what The Elysian Whisky Bar is trying to do. This Fitzroy whisky bar leans hard into rare and unusual bottlings, with flights for the curious and a proper cocktail list for anyone dragged along by an enthusiast. A bar food menu rounds things out, so no one has to drink on an empty stomach while debating single malts.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Dark wood, mismatched velvet, and leather sofas in a muted-light room that invites you to arrive early and leave late. Black Pearl is a cocktail bar on Brunswick Street that most drinks people treat as the main reason to come to Fitzroy at all. The list is short and inventive, boutique beers cover the non-cocktail moods, and bar food handles the rest. Difford's Guide rates it five stars, which tells you where the serious drinkers end up.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

There's no menu at The Everleigh, just a bartender who asks what you're drinking and means it. This upstairs cocktail bar on Gertrude Street runs on hand-cracked ice, fresh juice, and the kind of unhurried service that makes you feel like someone's actually paying attention. The team came up through Milk & Honey in New York, and the influence shows, with the rigidity quietly left behind on another continent.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Scarlet velvet curtains frame the main bar like a stage set, which is either a bold choice or a perfectly accurate one, given the theatrics of serious cocktail-making. This is a cocktail bar spread over three floors, with the ground level doing most of the heavy lifting. The name nods to the year the word cocktail was first defined in print, so the whole room is a love letter to the form. Vintage shakers, period details, but no stuffiness.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A cocktail bar on level three of a Bourke Street building, reached by a creaky elevator that fits seven at a push and opens onto a room dressed in full garden-party drag: wicker, pastel, and waitstaff in tennis whites. The drinks lean fruity and come in jugs, which is either charming or a warning depending on your afternoon. Melbourne's day-drinking set has been making the ascent for a long time.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide