Deck of Secrets – Showing you the good stuff

Kitsch meets cool at The Bottom End, with neither element quite coming out on top. In an area better known for chain strip clubs and tacky nightclubs the cultured bar hopper will welcome the quirky appearance of this new ‘pub/disco/diner’. A convivial American style diner straight out of an hipsters version of Happy Days is [...]

Following in the food-and-drink footsteps of a Hawksmoor reconnaissance Stateside, Juliet Kinsman grills Will Beckett, head honcho of the hip London steakhouse and cocktail bar, on the hottest joints in NYC. Fatty Johnsons 50 Carmine Street, West Village, NYC (212) 929 5050 A pop-up restaurant from the ‘Fatty’ crew (Williamsburg’s Fatty Cue and West Village and [...]

By Michelle Matthews Mink Bar 2 Acland St St Kilda Tel: 03 9536 1168 Open: Friday – Sunday 9pm-3am        

Filling the classic French bistro shaped hole since Philipe Mouchel vacated the Crown Complex, the new Guillaume incarnation feels much more focussed and significantly less starched. There’s a simple one page menu covering all the basics along with a single column wine list designed to free drinkers from the tyranny of too much choice. Thanks [...]

It’s been a long time between cool laneway bar openings in this city that defines itself by them. It’s actually been a rather unsettling period as news filters down from Sydney of their rapid proliferation of local council mandated small bar openings. Tonight Bar Americano opened. It’s virtually a micro bar with a standing room [...]

Every Thursday at Misty Bar a new cocktail list is created for one night only and inspired by the finest fresh market produce of the day from the Queen Victoria Market. This is a San Francisco idea where they’d rescue the unsold but seasonal produce and use it for great cocktails on a Monday night. [...]

Some people look to nature to determine the shifting of the seasons. I prefer to rely on Miss Pearls and the team at Madame Brussels. Summer starts and finishes with the first and last gourmet BBQ on the terrace. It’s the same for winter when they launch their series of risque soirees in The Parlour, their bar [...]

St Kilda is a bayside suburb of Melbourne just 7kms from the centre of town and easily accessed by tram. It’s a suburb well advanced along the gentrification path but clinging to its recent history as the city’s red light district and home to a disproportionate number of homeless people. It’s this side of the [...]

Huw Griffiths and Tom Scott of Madame Brussels bar in Melbourne have established a gin appreciation group in Australia under the name of the Juniper Society. The first meeting is this week and you can come. Below I’ve reproduced their spiel word for word so you can find out what this group is all about. [...]

It was last week that I visited Chin Chin for the first time. I was with a real FOCL making me a mere FOFOCL which incidentally doesn’t mean Fall Off Chair Laughing but I do prefer it to ROFLMAO. So when the CL himself walked in and, alarmed by our liquid-only leanings, he decided to [...]