Coming Soon: Bar Ferdinand, Hunter St Hospitality’s New Botanical-Themed CBD Cocktail Bar

At Bar Ferdinand, the new cocktail bar from Hunter St Hospitality (Rockpool, Spice Temple), above the group’s steak frites restaurant 7 Alfred, the drinks menu is designed to mimic a walk around a garden. Each of the eight cocktails are inspired by a different botanical motif: rose, fern, camellia, eucalypt, oak lawn, arid, herb and medicinal, and blackberry.

While drink names will stay the same, the cocktails themselves will constantly evolve. “Fern might change in a month because we’ve found a new angle on it, while Blackberry could stay put for six months. The idea is that the structure remains familiar, but the drinks inside it stay alive,” says bar manager Greg Thompson. “What sits inside each garden can shift depending on what produce is looking good, what ideas we’re working through, or whether we’ve found a better way to express that particular part of the menu. It’s not a case of doing a full seasonal rewrite at set times each year, it’ll move a bit more naturally than that.”

Thompson – who spent two years behind the bar at Apollo Inn and worked at Gimlet and Dinner by Heston before that – developed the concept and cocktail list with Hunter St Hospitality beverage director Ali Toghani. 

The bar is in a heritage-listed CBD building that was built in 1885 as the German Social Club, and housed Mietta’s Restaurant and Bar from 1984 to 1996. One of the city’s most important restaurants at the time, Mietta’s, run by Mietta O’Donnell and Tony Knox, is credited as the birthplace of the Japanese Slipper, a mix of Midori, Cointreau and lemon juice. 

“We’re doing a House Japanese Slipper as a direct nod to the fact the drink was created in the same building,” says Thompson. “Ours keeps that same melon-and-citrus profile, but in a cleaner, lighter way using a clarified honeydew melon base fortified with melon eau-de-vie, plus yuzu liqueur and a house citrus cordial. It’s not neon green, and it’s not trying to be ironic either, it’s just a really good version of a drink with a genuine connection to the site.” 

Bar Ferdinand is expected to open at Level 1, 7 Alfred Place, Melbourne, on Wednesday April 22.

bar-ferdinand.com.au