Now Open: Bomba

The Aylesbury is no more. Its new incarnation is Bomba. Owners Jesse Gerner and Andrew Fisk envision the venue as a “Spanish worker’s club” which translates to a bounty of tapas on offer. Sitting at the bar with a friend is my preferred way to dine in this style  – ie. […]

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Diary: Iron Bartender VII

Iron Bartender is a long running challenge at Lily Black‘s where two guest bartenders are set against one other to mix up a winning concoction with weird and wonderful surprise ingredients. They describe the event as essentially “a drunken version of ‘Iron Chef’”. This month, in a vague ode to the […]

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Diary: Cocktails for Dessert?

Quite often I’ll order a cocktail instead of dessert to assuage my guilt. The seductresses at New Gold Mountain have ruined this restraint by offering double the gluttony; cocktails AND dessert. Tonight is a little more special as the bar celebrates World Cocktail Week (it’s like Xmas around here) with – […]

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1806 Cocktail Competition

There’s quite a few cocktail competitions held around town – and the globe – for professional bartenders. Not so many for we at-home mixologists. 1806 recognised this and handed over the shakers to drinkers as part of their 5th birthday celebrations recently. Five concoctions submitted by regulars we put to […]

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Now Open: Captain Baxter

Atop Republica at the St Kilda Sea Baths, sits a new seaside bar; Captain Baxter. The bar’s mascot was once a real life naval captain (and Melbourne’ first postmaster), now transformed into a kind of giant squid wrestling, marine superhero as spray-painted on the venue’s walls. The space itself has the […]

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