Discover Melbourne's bars

Melburnians are pretty good at pulling the wool over your eyes. They pass their city off as ordered and somewhat conservative but inside a network of lanes and alleyways, they’re keeping a stack of hip bars and cool clubs all to themselves.

They’ll happily point you to the pub on the corner before they tell you about places like the Croft Institute. Decked out with laboratory apparatus, the Croft is hidden at the end of a long, narrow alleyway deep in Chinatown. And is worth the search party you may need to send out just to find it. Misty, Cookie and St Jerome’s are worth looking out for as well.

The cool set would probably prefer us not to mention St Kilda, where you’ll find them hanging out in the White Room, Mink Bar, and The George. While gig goers enjoy pubs like the Espy or The Prince of Wales, where live music of all sorts has long been hiding out.

You’ll find a more alternative, eclectic scene in Fitzroy. Walk up Brunswick, Johnston or Gertrude streets to expose loads of bars, like Alia, Polly, Yeltza, and pubs like the Standard, and more.