This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Melbourne
It was Louis Theroux who once said: “I’m not pugnacious or argumentative. I’d probably feel fear going into a pub in the Outback.” The Australian pub, as captured in documentaries like Hotel Coolgardie and its fictional reworking The Royal Hotel, has long been mythologised as a crucible of toxic masculinity. It’s embodied in sticky floors, beer glasses slammed on to countertops with a thirst for violence, the stale smell of cigarettes and a sort of rough egalitarianism that rarely extended to women — as was the case with gender segregation in most Australian pubs until the 1970s.
In Melbourne, the past few decades have seen pubs shift from rough-edged drinking dens to chef-led gastropubs to what today is something harder to define: venues that borrow the precision, quality and sensibility of wine bars while retaining the rituals, community and openness of the local. It is a model shaped as much by economics as taste, as rising costs and changing habits push operators to rethink what a pub can be, based on what people need and what they expect.
When I was growing up in the 2000s, the establishments I attended were a mix of sports pubs, poker-machine (“Pokies”) pubs and gastropubs. The rise of the latter, now a passé term, began in the early ’90s with O’Connell’s Centenary Hotel in South Melbourne, when the pub brought in the late chef Greg Malouf, who introduced a menu drawing on his Lebanese heritage in combination with more familiar Anglo staples. His restaurant-style cooking attracted people in to eat as much as to drink and set the new standard for pubs in the city.
In the early 2000s, wine bars became increasingly popular, normalising the drinking of excellent wines alongside excellent snacks. The shift reflected the growing confidence and acclaim of Australian wines and helped to establish Melbourne as a serious wine city.
Fast forward to present day and drinkers’ habits have yet again altered, shaped by the economic aftershocks of the pandemic and rising interest rates. People go out less often but expect more when they do, now gravitating towards places that balance quality with a sense of value. Some question whether these new or evolving venues are pubs at all or pub-shaped wine bars where the line between the two has blurred. They pair the quality of wine bars (top producers on offer alongside considered cooking) with the comforts of a local pub, with dishes such as the city’s beloved chicken Parmigiana. A pint of Guinness sits alongside a well-made martini; fish and chips next to moules frites.
In Australia, that approach feels distinctly Melbourne — an homage to the city’s cultural mix, where a broad, diverse crowd can feel at home, and where seasonal, produce-led cooking sits comfortably alongside familiarity, with any pretentiousness dissolving over a cold beer.
Gerald’s Bar
920 Lygon Street, Carlton North, VIC 3054
“Gerald’s?” is so deeply ingrained in Melbourne’s bar lexicon that it’s often posed as a single-word question at the tail-end of long nights out. Run by hospitality veteran Gerald Diffey and co-owner Mario Di Ienno, the venue began in 2006 as an intimate, dimly lit Carlton North wine bar and recently expanded to a larger venue on Lygon Street.
“We didn’t want to change,” Diffey says. “We just needed more space to keep doing what we were already doing.” Diffey and Di Ienno led the design process, enlisting the same builder, Nick Coyle to recreate a new front bar, with the addition of tap beer, including quarter-pints. They continue to offer a Coravin list, which features both premium local and international wines, alongside a more accessible by-the-glass offering centred on bottles from mainly Victorian producers, which have included a textural 2024 Roussanne from Jamsheed.
“Pubs are becoming much more democratic,” Diffey says. “We want anyone to come in and populate the space. That means better food, reasonable prices, good wine and a few cocktails too. That’s how you fill the joint.”
The reality is more complicated. As menus sharpen and wine lists deepen, prices inevitably follow, and maintaining that sense of accessibility becomes a balancing act. At Gerald’s, the food programme, designed by longtime head chef Peter Savage and newcomer Matt Podbury (who previously opened La Cachette in Geelong, Victoria, and also worked at Lyle’s in London), reflects that shift. A bar offering snacks for walk-ins, such as Scotch eggs with quail egg and duck mince (A$15 (£8/$10.70)), sits alongside a more formal prix-fixe menu at A$145pp (£76/$103) in the dining room, called The Parlour, allowing for different points of entry even as expectations rise.
Despite the scale, Diffey’s ethos remains intact and their local clientele haven’t abandoned ship. “We still know most of our regulars by name,” he says. Opening times: Monday-Thursday, 5pm-11pm; Friday-Saturday, noon-midnight; Sunday, noon-11pm. Website; Directions
Pendant Public Bar
334 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, VIC 3065
Longtime partners Belinda Linton and Luke Kelly, whose CVs span Melbourne bar royalty (The Everleigh, Black Pearl and Apollo Inn), dreamt of opening their first bar for 10 years before they launched Pendant Public Bar in 2025. Emulating the familiarity of the pub was vital “for the unchallenging nature of it,” Linton says. They describe their venue as a “bar with a pub feel, but with high-quality drinking and country music.”
Ease and comfort sit at the heart of the venue’s charm. The name is inspired by the floppy ears of their late kelpie, a tribute that is reflected in their logo of a pendant ear and a dog-friendly front bar. When they took the space over, it already featured pressed tin ceilings, and their new addition of timber panelling “brings a really nice winter warmth,” says Linton, adding that the venue is also furnished with thrifted and antique-store finds. “We didn’t want it to look too polished,” she says. “We wanted it to feel collected over time.”
Guinness pints flow freely — “we sell an absolute truckload,” says Linton, alongside a minus‑18C house martini and five seasonal cocktails, which together drive nearly half their trade. The wine list runs to about 25 bottles and 10 by the glass and now leans towards Victorian producers after guest demand pushed it local, though Linton admits a personal fondness for French and Spanish whites. A daily $10 Guinness happy hour and a crisps-and-peanuts-only snack list round out the offering, with most hands wrapped around either a pint or a cocktail at any given moment. Opening times: Wednesday-Monday, 4pm-midnight. Website; Directions
The Carpenter’s Ruin
Ground Floor, 15 Inkerman Street, St Kilda, VIC 3182
In St Kilda, a beachside suburb once defined by its rock’n’roll grit, sits a new-school neighbourhood pub, The Carpenter’s Ruin. Co-owners Amy McGouldrick and Marty Webster also run the award-winning cocktail bar The Walrus next door (it suddenly closed in December last year, but has since reopened). The duo have folded The Walrus’s DNA into this space via experimentation with house-made sodas and a serious cocktail list.
“We wanted something comfortable and consistent,” McGouldrick says. As locals themselves, they sought to create “a pub where we could go and we knew that it was going to be good quality”. The proof is in tradesmen sinking beers after work shoulder to shoulder with creative-industry regulars who order “premium A$120 bottles off the list”. The Australian wine list spans a wide range of producers, from local young winemaker Joshua Cooper to established names such as Leeuwin Estate. Those in the know order from a hidden 14-page list drawn from The Walrus’s cellar, which moves from oyster-friendly Muscadet and champagne to their very obvious penchant for Jura rock-star producer Jean-François Ganevat.
The room is split between bar and bistro, with sports broadcast across either of the two muted TVs. Near-daily food specials are centred on bar favourites; an expertly crafted dry martini might accompany a cheeseburger via the Tuesday burger special.
“The idea of a pub has changed,” McGouldrick says. “But what people want hasn’t. They want to be known, fed well and looked after without having to think too hard about it.” Opening times: Monday-Saturday, noon-11pm; Sunday, noon-10pm. Website; Directions
Daphne
52 Lygon Street, Brunswick East, VIC 3057
If Etta was restaurateur Hannah Green’s answer to the modern neighbourhood eatery, Daphne, her follow-up, is her version of the contemporary Melbourne pub. Green opened Daphne a few doors down from her first project with a simple directive: “My dad should be able to read the menu and want to eat everything on it.”
The pub offers nostalgia-driving dishes with a twist, such as roast chicken with a black-garlic glaze and sage cream, or — a favourite when they previously featured on the menu — hot dogs made with pig’s head sausage and doused in house barbecue sauce. While the menu changes seasonally, diners can always expect to see a pasta, burger and a steak. “We wanted food that felt comforting but used ingredients that make it costly to replicate at home,” Green says. That same thinking extends to the wine: a concise, approachable list anchored in homegrown producers such as Eastern Peake and Little Reddie, though guests also have access to Etta’s denser cellar, where harder-to-source bottles from small scale European producers make a case for drinking out.
While the venue was created with her dad in mind, it was also designed for families too, with a kids’ menu on offer. When a couple with a pram rolled in during Daphne’s opening week, Green says she had an excitable “this is working” moment. “It’s a restaurateur’s answer to a pub,” she says. “The mood is fun and easy-going. The food is highly delicious but not too fancy.” Opening times: Monday-Thursday, 4pm-late; Friday-Saturday, noon-late. Website; Directions
Le Pub
380 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000
Le Pub was always destined for greatness. The quasi-pub doubles as a bottle shop (off-licence), with selected wines from the vast collection of its proprietors, the European Group, run by restaurateurs Con Christopoulos and Joshua Brisbane. The duo helped shape Melbourne’s modern bistro and wine-bar culture through institutions such as The European, on the city’s historic Spring Street. “In tough times, the pub offering is a gift to the community,” says Christopoulos. “You can just meet your mates, have a drink while they eat. You’re not being asked, ‘Have you dined with us before?’ It’s: ‘How are you? There’s the bar.’”
Le Pub is situated next door to sibling venue Kirk’s Wine Bar, and the food and drink offering leans British and French. There’s Guinness on tap, bone marrow, snail and oxtail pies and offal dishes, such as pig’s-head doughnut and calf liver, all scrawled over handwritten menus that proffer mains for a maximum of A$30 a pop. The wine list is refreshingly democratic, offering wines bought from its bottle shop with an A$25 corkage fee. “It’s about access,” Christopoulos says. “Even if you’re on a budget, you should still be treated with respect and have a lovely time.” Opening times: Tuesday-Sunday, noon-late. Instagram; Directions
Have you explored Melbourne’s wine-pub scene? Share your recommendations in the comments below. And follow us on Instagram at @ftglobetrotter
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