The 51 Best Places to Drink and Stay 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 · Best International Cocktail Bar

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

Perched at the top of Collins Street overlooking St. Patrick's Cathedral, this luxury hotel is the kind of Melbourne landmark that many locals somehow can't place, which keeps the grand split-level lobby pleasantly uncrowded. Rooms run oversized, mixing Art Deco bones with Japanese-style sliding panels and Italian marble bathrooms. A 25-meter edgeless pool hides on an upper floor, and the suites come with fireplaces or terraces that feel almost satirically generous.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Rooms start on floor 65, which means the Dandenong Ranges and Port Phillip Bay are your default wallpaper at this luxury hotel in the Melbourne CBD. The interiors, designed by Melbourne firm Bar Studio, mix airy elegance with First Nations and local art so it doesn't feel like every other Ritz-Carlton on earth. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
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

Two circular windows stare out from the red-brick facade like the building is watching you back. Hyde Melbourne Place is a 16-story hotel above Flinders Lane where the rooms are individually styled, suites open onto city-facing patios, and the lobby runs video installations the way other lobbies run cable news. Burnt orange, deep green, and velvet blue throughout. The rooftop draws the after-work crowd, and a penthouse that looks borrowed from a film set tops it all off. It holds a Michelin Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A pink London taxi idles outside the entrance, which tells you most of what you need to know about The Langham Melbourne's approach to subtlety. This luxury hotel sits along the Yarra in Southbank, close enough to the Arts District and the famous laneways to feel central. Chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling flower arrangements fill the lobby, rooms come with marble soaking tubs, and the Club Lounge serves evening drinks on a schedule precise enough to set your watch by.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A Collins Street address tucked between designer boutiques, with laneway bars on either side doing their best to slow you down before check-in. This is old-school Melbourne luxury, and the Grand Hyatt has been around forever, yet the rooms and common areas read as modern rather than museum-piece. The staff retention is the real tell: some team members have been here for decades, which at a hotel this size is less a fact and more a personality trait.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Concrete walls, lacquered red accents, and lobby installations by local artists signal that this Fitzroy hotel is trying to be something other than a hotel. The StandardX is the group's first offshoot property, and it wears the neighborhood's warehouse-bar energy without much effort. The rooftop pours cocktails over Melbourne skyline views, and Bang downstairs runs seasonal plates with local wine. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Reclaimed wood, potted plants (an actual rarity in hotels), and creamy natural tones set the mood at this Docklands property on the Yarra, where the whole design brief seems to be "what if a hotel felt like a forest floor." 1 Hotel's sustainability-first ethos runs through everything: low-intervention Australian wines, local Victorian producers across the four dining and drinking spots, and a Bamford spa with pool, sauna, and steam room. It holds a Michelin Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A shiny silver ball motif threads through the whole property, turning up in the lobby ceiling, the fruit basket, and, if you've booked the right penthouse, an actual in-room pinball machine. This CBD hotel runs on apartment logic: open-plan rooms, full kitchens in the bigger suites, free minibars, and bold local art on the walls. Spa people will need to look elsewhere, but everyone else gets a place that feels genuinely lived-in rather than merely occupied.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Art Deco façade on Bourke Street is the opening argument, and the hotel mostly follows through. Mid-century modernism carries into the rooms, where the light fixtures alone justify a moment of appreciation. The rooftop pool deck is where everyone ends up at dusk, heated water and cocktails making a persuasive case for staying put. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The elevators crack jokes here, which either sets the tone or warns you off entirely. QT Melbourne is a design hotel inside a 1930s cinema, with neon sculptures, 6,000 books on a single wall, and rooms that go unexpectedly quiet: concrete, slate, timber, leather. Corner rooms put the bathtub against floor-to-ceiling windows above the city. Downstairs, Pascale Bar & Grill does wood-fired Euro bistro cooking; the rooftop pours serious gin over unobstructed Melbourne skyline.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The subterranean pool, lit by lanterns and bookable by the hour for private swims, tells you something about the ambition here. The Interlude is a boutique hotel built inside Melbourne's former Pentridge Prison, where vaulted red-brick ceilings and bluestone corridors remain, but walls came down to create suites spanning four or five cells each. Fires burn in the old jail yard. It holds a Michelin Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

The swooping central staircase makes an argument the moment you walk in. This Collins Street hotel leans into Art Deco grandeur without turning it into a theme park, the bones are historical but the overall feel is pared-down and contemporary. Rooms have Westin's Heavenly Beds and oversized bathtubs, a spa and fitness center are on hand, and City Square fills the windows. Flinders Street Station is close enough that you can actually use the city on foot.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

A 28-floor tower on the Southbank with over 600 rooms is the kind of hotel project cities don't attempt much anymore. This is a large, full-service luxury hotel aiming for grand-hotel scale, with generously sized rooms, far-ranging city views, and a complete spa. Gordon Ramsay runs two restaurants on-site, and the rooftop bar on the 28th floor offers something Melbourne, not a city known for skyscraper living, doesn't offer many chances to do.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The hotel occupies part of the old flatiron-shaped Queensbank building in Southbank, a neighborhood that sits just quietly enough across the river to feel like a deliberate exhale from the CBD. Flack Studio fitted out all 188 rooms with warm, retro tones and rich textures, giving the whole place a look that reads as thoughtfully designed rather than accidentally charming. Crown Casino is a short walk away, and the city center is a bridge.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The bar on the 25th floor looks out over Port Phillip Bay, which is a reasonable argument for booking here. This CBD hotel sits between Southbank and Docklands, and the rooms go for warm timber and local references rather than generic business-hotel beige. Coffee and late-night pantry raids are handled downstairs by Allie Lane. The Michelin Guide has it on their selected hotels list.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A converted Salvation Army printing works, the old brick facade and arched windows still legible at street level while a contemporary tower rises above. This apartment-hotel sits opposite Parliament Gardens, and rooms finished in blonde oak and soft gray look out over either the park or the city. More than 450 works by Melbourne artists hang throughout, which beats the usual corridor landscapes. St. Ali runs the lobby coffee, and Chronicle 502 handles modern Australian food and cocktails downstairs.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

The golden ceiling above the indoor pool sets the tone for W Melbourne, a luxury hotel occupying Collins Arch, a skyscraper above Flinders Lane. Rooms go heavy on bold color and futuristic styling, which either thrills you or has you sleeping with your eye mask on. Five restaurants and bars are on hand, covering all-day Italian, Japanese omakase, and a cocktail bar that runs DJ nights. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Graffiti-style neon signage marks this boutique hotel on Lygon Street, where the family-owned rooms run to dark timber, marble, and brass. Bathrooms come with three-setting mirrors and Cowshed toiletries; complimentary branded socks suggest someone has thought very hard about the details. An in-house café handles all-day brunch, and a wine bar takes over at night. Carlton's Italian delis and the King and Godfree complex are a short walk.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The bathtubs in the corner suites are angled toward the Yarra, which tells you most of what you need to know about this waterfront hotel in South Wharf. Rooms run generous even at entry level, with pale timber and soft blues nodding to the area's shipping past, and Dani Marti's textured marine-inspired work fills the public spaces. Dock 37 handles modern Italian downstairs, and the Club Lounge quietly throws in complimentary laundry with breakfast.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Twelve suites perched on the southern edge of Royal Botanic Gardens, with parkland out front and South Yarra's cafes and boutiques behind. This boutique hotel skips the grand lobby and the spa pavilion in favour of deeply considered rooms, Le Labo products in the rain showers, and wood-fired cooking at Matilda downstairs, which locals treat as their own neighbourhood restaurant. Small enough that the service actually remembers you.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The rooms lean hard into Seventies rock-and-roll energy, with moody palettes and enough visual noise to distract from the fact that this is also a quietly luxurious hotel. Ovolo South Yarra sits in one of Melbourne's better neighborhoods, and even the smaller rooms come with high-end comforts where they count. The suites go full glamour. Downstairs, Lona Misa runs a mostly plant-based Latin American menu, and Backroom does low-lit Art Deco cocktails.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Parkville's boutique hotel dedicated to Victorian painter David Larwill turns the whole building into a kind of gallery you can sleep in. His bold, motif-heavy work covers the guest rooms and public spaces, and the interior design follows his lead, pulling color from the canvas into the architecture. There's an art library, guided art tours, and an all-day farm-to-table restaurant called The Farmacy on site.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Each floor of this South Yarra boutique hotel has its own mini art gallery and a fireplace lounge, which sets the tone before you even reach your suite. The suites themselves run studio to two-bedroom, furnished in an Eastern style with full kitchens and walk-in closets, so the line between hotel stay and private apartment gets pleasantly blurry. Bistro Lyall and a Champagne Bar round things out, with the city nine minutes away by train.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The building was once a luxury-car showroom, and the hotel that replaced it kept the name and leaned into the mythology. Art Deco details run throughout, but the feel is more contemporary-nostalgic than period-room precious. The Showroom Bar hosts live jazz on Fridays, and the Terrace restaurant does breakfast in a light-filled indoor-outdoor room. A boutique stay on St Kilda Road, selected by the Michelin Guide.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Thirty-nine rooms dressed in dark wood and a shade of white that looks like it was just invented sit inside a renovated heritage building on St Kilda's main strip. The Prince is a boutique hotel that manages to feel effortless rather than labored, which is harder than it looks. A spa, a proper restaurant, and a live music venue downstairs suggest the place has other ambitions beyond a nice bed.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

A hotel attached to what is, by some measures, the largest shopping mall in Australia, which is either a selling point or a warning depending on your relationship with retail therapy. Rooms lean Art Deco with a contemporary edge, in keeping with the MGallery brand. There's a pool, a spa called Holism Retreat, a modern Italian restaurant, and a rooftop bar with afternoon High Tea for when you've walked yourself to ruin downstairs.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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

Part of the Art Series Hotels group, The Chen dedicates its entire identity to Zhong Chen, a Chinese-born Pop-influenced painter whose bold, colorful work fills the property. The hotel occupies five floors of a Box Hill high-rise, with 100 suites offering sweeping views across suburban Melbourne. The on-site Golden Lily restaurant runs upscale Cantonese with Shanghai and Sichuan additions, and the surrounding Whitehorse Towers development adds further dining options nearby.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Limestone walls from 1875 anchor one wing of this full-service resort on the Mornington Peninsula, where Port Phillip Bay sits on one side and the open ocean on the other. The rooms run across three wings, all pulling toward a vaguely European, cosmopolitan look. Downstairs you'll find a spa and bathhouse, a pool deck, a twenties-style cocktail bar, and a flagship restaurant by Scott Pickett. An hour and a half from Melbourne, and firmly in wine country.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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