Dance clubs, live music, rooftop bars, speakeasies, LGBTQ+ venues, listening bars and late-night dives in Melbourne.
Dance clubs, live music, rooftop bars, speakeasies, LGBTQ+ nightlife, listening bars and late-night dives across Melbourne, with where to go and what is worth the late night.
Revolver Upstairs on Chapel Street is Melbourne's most enduring dance club: a 36-hour weekend licence, a multiple-room layout across a terrace building and a booking history that spans everyone from local DJs to international electronic acts.
New Guernica in a Corrs Lane basement is Melbourne's specialist techno club: a dark, low-ceiling room with a function-first sound system and a booking policy that consistently brings serious international and local electronic acts.
The Corner Hotel on Swan Street is Melbourne's most important mid-sized live music venue: a 1,000-capacity front bar and band room that has launched or hosted every significant Australian band since the 1990s.
The Tote on Johnston Street is Melbourne's underground rock institution: a three-room pub venue that was saved by a 2010 public campaign after liquor licence changes threatened to close it, and has since never looked back.
Howler in Brunswick is Melbourne's best outdoor music venue: a warehouse main room with an attached garden bar that hosts the city's best independent festival-scale events without the festival size.
Siglo's rooftop terrace above Spring Street overlooks Parliament House and the Treasury Gardens: a tailored cocktail list, an Australian whisky selection and the best Melbourne rooftop view outside the high-rise hotel bars.
Naked for Satan's rooftop deck above Brunswick Street is Fitzroy's most-used outdoor drinking terrace: vermouth, pintxos and a city skyline view from a building that feels like it should charge more than it does.
The Attic above Black Pearl is Melbourne's most refined small bar: a 20-seat upstairs room at one of the world's best-rated bars, accessible only through the ground-floor venue, with a cocktail list built for unhurried drinking.
Bar Americano in Presgrave Place has no signage and 10 standing spots: the Negroni and Americano poured at this tiny counter are a benchmark for what a bar can achieve when it decides to do only one or two things correctly.
The Peel Hotel in Collingwood is Melbourne's oldest and most established gay dance club: a DJ-led dancefloor with a cruisy upstairs bar, trading since the 1980s as the anchor of Melbourne's LGBTQ+ nightlife.
The Laird on Gipps Street is Melbourne's longest-running gay leather bar and a LGBTQ+ community institution: pool tables, a beer garden, regular leather-themed events and a history that goes back to the 1970s.
Loop in Meyers Place is Melbourne's oldest listening bar: a laneway venue with a curated vinyl collection played through a proper sound system, art exhibitions on the walls and cocktails that complement the music rather than compete with it.
Heartbreaker on Russell Street is the city's best late-night dive bar: a red-lit room with a proper jukebox, DJs from 10pm, cheap beer and absolutely no desire to be anything other than exactly what it is.
The Old Bar on Johnston Street is Fitzroy's authentic dive: live bands most nights from local and touring acts, sticky floors, a pool table and a crowd that knows the difference between a venue that has character and one that has only designed itself to look like it does.