Why you goBack in the day, if you wanted a cocktail in Spain or Portugal, you were offered a gin and tonic, and what it might’ve lacked in sophistication it made up for in size, typically being about as big as your head. But those days are gone and, today, perhaps riding the tailwind that brought Madrid, Barcelona and San Sebastián’s restaurants to global attention, there are now as many places from Spain on the World’s 50 Best Bars list as there are from New York, and the scene just keeps getting better. Back home, we’ve got some notably excellent Spanish (and, to a lesser extent, Portuguese) eating in Australia, but on the cocktail side of things, it’s still early days. In other words, it’s Mr Mills’s time to shine. Set in a large but somehow reasonably intimate basement space under Marmelo restaurant at the foot of the new Melbourne Place boutique hotel, it’s a departure from the timber-and-tapas style of many a local Spanish operation. Instead, say architects Mitchell & Eades, the look of the two spaces, divided by a dramatic chartreuse staircase and detailed in fine tiles and lush swathes of banquette, was inspired by “the rhythmic vitality of Portuguese performance and dance culture”. (Translation: don’t expect bullfighting posters.) All in all, it’s a unique proposition, executed with enough class to make it much more than something you’d visit as a one-off to satisfy your curiosity.
