It’s been a huge year for top-tier openings. Add these eight venues to your must-visit list.
1. Gracie’s Wine Room, South Yarra
Locals were all-in for Gracie’s Wine Room before it opened its doors, thanks to owner Kelsie Gaffey’s TikToks chronicling the build and amassing a loyal following. Now, a few months into service, the South Yarra hotspot is primed for knock-offs in the leafy courtyard and long, lazy afternoons at the bar alike. Pull up at either with a glass of chilled red from Fin Wines, perhaps, and one of Gracie’s buttery lobster rolls, and you’ve got yourself a party.
A Melbourne wine bar done exactly as it should be: small, salty snacks dominate the food menu, and the drinks list leans European – but not without a little local flair. Start with the house Spritz where Davidson plum and rosella-flower apéritif meet Dubonnet and pomegranate molasses for one hell of a party starter. The wine list, meanwhile, pulls from both local and international producers, and shifts often to match the menu.
Tiny Bar takes its name seriously – very seriously. The compact menu is packed with small and delicious plates such as abalone cooked in-shell and a generous showing of pickled delights. Whatever you’re eating, odds are it’ll pair up with Tiny Bar’s house cocktail, the Pippo: an Italian riff on a Scotch and Coke that swaps out the latter for Chinotto. The wine list is just as exciting – and, true to theme, small – where belter bottles from the likes of South Australia’s Parley, L’appel Wines out of Tasmania and the Yarra Valley’s Toolangi Wines may or may not make an appearance throughout the evening.
4. Baptist Street Rec Club, Redfern
Baptist Street Rec Club is an exercise in all things Australiana: shaggy pub carpets, nostalgic cocktails, beers brewed just around the corner and plenty of love for local producers on the wine list. Lean into the theme – and into the booths draped in crushed velvet – with a Midori-charged Japanese Slipper or the signature Breakfast Martini. An appropriate order any time of day? If the doors are open at Baptist Street Rec Club, we say yes.
Entering Herbs Taverne is entering a sort of Negroni nirvana. Everything is red, everyone is drinking Negronis, and if you’ve found yourself in this underground cocktail hideout, there’s a fair chance you want a Negroni, too. The drinks list is tight here: three riffs on the Negroni hero the menu, then there’s back-up from several aperitifs including one particularly exciting coriander-spiked vodka number, and an offering of Italy’s bittersweet amari liqueurs tipping 50 bottles.
Chef Luke Burgess’s previous venue was among the first in Australia to serve natural wine, so it’s no surprise the theme continues at Scholé – a 10-seater wine bar housed in a former casket showroom. But natural wine isn’t the only draw. Between the drinks list and a tidy seven-item menu, Luke packs big flavour into his little bar, which often leans Japanese: smart sake choices, off-menu Highballs, an unmissable swordfish katsu, and a rotating list of snacky plates that put Tassie produce front and centre.
7. Bottle Shock, Adelaide Hills
Bottle Shock comes from a handful of self-proclaimed wine nerds who want to educate you about the good stuff in an entirely new way. The team has gamified the tasting experience with blind flights exploring a collection of more than 150 wines, many sourced locally from the Adelaide Hills. They also own their own winery, Unico Zelo, so expect a drop or two of theirs to show up during your tasting and at the bar.
Deadbeat packs a punch like nothing else in Perth, and its signature cocktail, the Snake Venom – a full-throttle concoction of lemon vodka, melon, sour apple and acid – proves it. You’ll find this rule-breaking bar tucked down a CBD laneway where pulsing red neons act as a calling card for some of the city’s most outrageous cocktails, served in one of its most unapologetic venues.
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