Topnotch bottled cocktails, fancy goon sacks, natural-wine flagons – of course Melbourne’s bars did lockdown booze expertly. But while some operators pivoted to takeaway, others focused their attention on opening new venues amidst all the madness. Here, we raise a glass – standing up, now it’s allowed – to the bars that caught our attention this year.

Missed our round-up of Melbourne’s best restaurant and cafe openings of 2020? Find them here and here.

Cherry Bar
This raucous rock’n’roll venue, a Melbourne icon, moved out of its original home on AC/DC Lane midyear and into the former Boney site on Little Collins Street. But loyalists will recognise the wooden panels, leopard-print couches and horseshoe-shaped booths, which survived the relocation and give Cherry Bar’s new two-storey home a familiar feel. With the move comes a 24-hour liquor licence and room for an extra 40 punters, but until restrictions ease further it’s sticking to two standing-room shows on Fridays and Saturdays – with tickets from $10. We’re just glad it’s back.

We think you might like Access. For $12 a month, join our membership program to stay in the know.

SIGN UP

Hemingway’s Wine Room
This lavish, split-down-the-centre space – located among East Melbourne’s ornate terraces, bluestone cottages and art-deco apartments – was designed with the spirit of 1920s Paris and New York in mind. On one side it’s a French brassiere, where you can have a cheese trolley wheeled to your table or settle in for a long lunch with free-flowing 1.5-litre magnums. On the other side it’s a casual boozer, where you can sip classic European drops and Ernest Hemingway-inspired cocktails (such as the Torero Muerto, a mix of reposado tequila, apricot brandy, lime juice and agave infused with chilli and coriander).

Jamsheed Urban Winery
In a roomy Preston warehouse, Jamsheed’s urban winery and cellar door – the Victorian label’s first permanent home – presents more like a divey brewery (in the best sense). There are naked concrete floors, sparse industrial-chic furnishings, stacks of barrels strewn about the place, a pool table and even beer taps. But here it’s all about Gary Mills’s exciting, extremely drinkable wines – which you can watch him make during vintage. Among them: the crowd-favourite Candy Flip, a fizzy, pink-hued pét-nat, and a selection of “park wines” (which wine guy Mike Bennie describes as “thirst-quenching wines made for casual drinking”).

Maha Bar
Shane Delia’s snazzy new north-side spot – reopening next year after the topsy-turviness of 2020 – is the good-time sibling to flagship Middle Eastern restaurant Maha. (And it’s in the space that once housed his fancy kebab shop Biggie Smalls.) To eat? A borek-doughnut hybrid, savoury fish crumpets, and lamb shoulder with date-and-lamb-fat sauce. To drink? Turkish Delight Martinis and za’atar Margaritas. Park yourself at the cork-topped bar and order up big in a room decorated with playful French-Lebanese art.

Nick & Nora’s
Unfortunate: this glitzy, 1930s-themed cocktail bar by the Speakeasy Group (Eau de Vie, Mjolner, Boilermaker House) opened smack-bang in between lockdowns. Fortunate: it gave Melburnians one helluva place to celebrate as soon as lockdown 2.0 lifted, with a luxe 11.59pm soiree. For a cocktail bar, it’s huge. Once things go back to normal, there’ll be table service for 240 people across five separate rooms and three balconies. Go for theatrical cocktails bubbling with liquid nitrogen; boozy yuzu-pineapple punch bowls for four (served in a huge bronze swan); fancy canapés; and more.

Mrs Singh
Jessi Singh – the chef-restaurateur behind casual Indian diners Horn Please and Daughter in Law, and new British-Indian mega-pub Mr Brownie – opened this Indian-ish wine bar on Flinders Lane at the start of the year. It’s in a space replete with velvet seating, black-and-white terrazzo and blue resin floors. The star of the menu? Cheesy flatbreads – choose from comté, smoked butter and coriander oil; taleggio, mint and truffle oil; and blue cheese with caramelised onion and garlic. There’s also a lobster roll with curry-dusted crisps, vindaloo-pork momos and a roving champagne cart.

Honourable mentions
After a major revival of St Kilda’s iconic Prince of Wales Hotel, the Prince Public Bar reopened, ready for its crown. And Ponyfish Island – Melbourne’s only bar in the middle of the Yarra – got a Palm Springs-inspired makeover.

Audience picks
Two of Broadsheet’s most-read bar-opening stories of the year: a mighty neighbourhood pub and bottle-o by an Aussie craft-booze collective in a transformed Sporting Globe in Moonee Ponds, and a neon-painted, open-air bar in Prahran with Miami Vice vibes from the team behind Galah.