Clubbing Not Your Thing? Here’s What Else You Can Do in Melbourne After Dark

Every Australian city is beautiful – but when it comes to nightlife, Melbourne stands apart. Our city is stacked with danceable clubs, pumping tunes until the early hours, whether you’re hitting up the CBD, Chapel Street or increasingly clubby Smith Street.

But if dancing the night away isn’t your idea of a perfect night on the town, Melbourne thankfully has more to offer. From art after dark to late-night bites, here are some of our favourite ways to keep the night going and hang out in Melbourne post-sundown.

Explore the NGV after hours

Who says art galleries are only for the daylight hours? With its twice-a-year Friday Nights program, the NGV throws the doors open after hours with exclusive exhibition access, highlighted this time around by the eye-popping vibrance of Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama. The season-long exhibition includes infinity mirror rooms and immersive installations, but it’s the rest of the Friday Nights experience that makes for a full evening out – from pop-up bars by Moet & Chandon, and Four Pillars to performances from local artists and DJs like Rainbow Chan and DJ JNETT.

Catch a band at Cherry Bar

One of the few bars in the CBD that could rightly be labelled a live music institution, Cherry Bar holds a special place in the fabric of our city’s gig culture. Though it moved down the road from its original site in 2020, Cherry Bar has kept the essence of rock’n’roll seeping from every pore of the grungy, sweaty bar. You’ll still find live music nearly every night of the week running till late in the band room, as well as regular afterparties for touring bands. If classic tunes without the live band is more your thing, you could also swing into Heartbreaker and shoot pool till 3am.

Watch stand-up at Comedy Republic

Trust comedians to know exactly what a comedy club should be. From the minds of Alex Dyson and Kyran and Rhys Nicholson, Comedy Republic is a stand-up comedy bar and theatre that the trio converted from an internet gaming cafe into a purpose-built comedy space. Comedy Republic straddles the line between being small enough for new comics to cut their teeth, and big enough for touring shows and bigger bills, meaning that on any given night you’ve a chance to see notable names like Joel Creasey and Claire Hooper – or, if you’re lucky, you might catch the next big thing. With a bar stocking mostly local breweries and wineries, your night out is sorted.

Late-night bites

Where do we even start? Melbourne’s late-night food scene isn’t so much a postscript to a night on the town, as a reason to head out in the first place. For classic dining late into the evening, we’d head to Andrew McConnell’s Gimlet for its supper menu featuring the famous Gimlet cheeseburger, strip steak and all-night caviar service. Or you can pop into long-time late-night favourite Butchers Diner for burgers, fried chicken and skewers. Though no longer operating 24 hours as it once did, it’s still open until 1am most nights.

A night at the theatre

Melbourne’s theatre district is an embarrassment of riches – a historic precinct of architecturally significant theatres like Her Majesty’s, the Princess and the Regent, each with a changing program of plays, musicals and live performances. Right now you can catch classics like Beauty and the Beast, while upcoming performances include Beetlejuice the Musical or the darkly emotional Hadestown. The theatre precinct links in nicely with the area’s late-night diners, too, so popping into Butchers Diner right around the corner form the Princess Theatre after a show is one way to fill an evening.

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