Bar Lourinha
The Spanish have it down tight when it comes to good eating; taking your time, digesting, having a listen to conversations around you, and savouring your company like your wine is the ethos behind it all. Friendly, talkative and communal, Bar Lourinha offers some of the finest tapas and European wine in the city.
The Next Wave Festival Club
The best cure for an art hangover is not to be found in alcohol abuse. Edie Sedgwick, for instance, got wild until everyone at The Factory had crossed out her phone number or whatever it was they did in the olden days. On the other hand, it's nice to have a festival club because sometimes you want to talk about art without having to stand in an alleyway with a plastic cup.
white rabbit Record Bar
Alighting from Kensington station, you may be forgiven for thinking you had been transported to the other side of the looking glass with Alice. Bellair Street abounds with creatures of small stature talking gibberish (kids) and happy hairy animals (dogs mostly) and, well, people eating mushrooms (brunch).
Minlokal
Communal tables are fun in theory; banquets of towering cakes, stuffed pigs and candelabras have appeared in almost every given Shakespearean setting and the Hogwarts Dining Room sounds like the best place to eat Yorkshire pudding. But for most, group dining is a reminder of bitchy school camp trough-scoffing.
The Sweatshop
Melbourne's latest nook-and-cranny bar The Sweatshop welcomes you with all the warmth of a Thai callgirl. Owners Jason Chan and Anthony Herzog have recreated a Bangkok factory basement, complete with seedy red lighting, wilting ferns, and rolls of oriental fabrics suspended from the ceiling alongside exposed power cables.
Gerald's Bar
There was a time when I used to be completely intimidated by wine and only know two things about it. I knew Cab Savs were the most robust, and I knew there was some kudos to be found saying stuff like ‘great legs', or ‘fantastic year'. There was only so long I could live hiding behind these snippets before people found out I was completely full of shit.
Palmz
Don't ask how they got up there, but those sixteen full-sized palm trees on the roof of the Carlton Hotel are but the icing on the cake - the tassel on the metre maid's bikini - of a new Gold Coast -esque oasis.
Palmz at the Carlton opens this weekend. Now, instead of smoking in the shaft-like courtyard on level one, staring up at the sky, immune to the sun's healing UV rays, you can develop a bronzed, surf-coast-real-estate agent hue on the roof.
Random Entries:
Search our guide to Melbourne
Browse our guide to Melbourne by interest
Browse our guide to Melbourne by keyword
Melbourne Events Calendar
Select a date to see what's on in Melbourne
Browse our guide to Melbourne by weekly issue
Working