First Look: The Botanical-Themed Bar Ferdinand Is Part Bar, Part Museum

Above 7 Alfred, the steak frites restaurant by Hunter St Hospitality (Rockpool, Spice Temple) in the city’s east end, is Bar Ferdinand – the group’s new botanical-themed cocktail bar serving forward-thinking drinks with a nod to the past. Head up the staircase to level one and you’ll find a heritage-listed space adorned with marble tables, velvet booths and Victorian-era wood panels. You’ll also notice plants and terrariums scattered around the room – a naturalistic touch in an otherwise opulent space that feels part bar, part museum.

That sense is reinforced by the cocktail list, conceived by Greg Thompson (Apollo Inn, Gimlet, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal) and group beverage director Ali Toghani, which draws heavily on the history of 7 Alfred Place.

From 1885 until the First World War, the building was home to Melbourne’s German club, which hosted regular talks and gatherings for the local expat community. Among the notables and intellectuals who frequented the club’s lecture hall was leading German Australian botanist – and the bar’s namesake – Sir Ferdinand von Mueller. Victoria’s government botanist under Governor Charles La Trobe, von Mueller became the first director of Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens in 1857.

“We wanted to work with the building and its history, so a lot of research went into who had been here, what had been happening here,” Thompson says. “Once we found out that the space was tied to some pretty significant botanical research, the concept naturally evolved from there.”

Each of Bar Ferdinand’s eight signature cocktails is inspired by flora found in the botanic gardens. There’s the Eucalypt, with calvados, nashi pear wine and eucalypt soda; the Herb, with fig leaf gin, macadamia orgeat, sage and lemon; and the Fern, with cognac, kaolin clay vodka, puer tea and a petrichor mist.

Rounding out the menu – which is decorated with scientific illustrations and descriptions of the plants behind each cocktail – is a house Martini and house Japanese Slipper, both reinterpreted with botanicals. The Slipper, made with yuzu and house melon, is a nod to former tenant Mietta’s Restaurant and Bar, where the drink was created in the 1980s.

Thompson says Bar Ferdinand will suit both cocktail connoisseurs and a more casual crowd. “You can sit up at the bar and I’ll explain that [the inspiration for] our Oak cocktail” – featuring rye whisky, absinth, manuka honey and beeswax – “comes from a botanic garden tree planted from seeds that a groundskeeper pocketed after a 100-year-old oak fell sometime in the 2000s. Or if you’ve had a long day and you just want to come in, sip a Martini and hang out on your own, it’s a great spot for that too.”

The short snacks menu also makes use of botanicals, with options including a German pretzel with native butter, and chocolate bark with wattleseed, as well as Wagyu pot pie and a pork and pistachio terrine. “The snacks are meant to mimic a picnic platter to complement this idea of enjoying the botanic gardens,” Toghani says. “Along with the botanical-focused drinks, they’re intended to bring that outdoor feeling into the interior of the space.”

Bar Ferdinand
Level 1, 7 Alfred Place, Melbourne

Hours:
Sun to Thu 5pm–midnight
Fri & Sat 5pm–1am

bar-ferdinand.com.au
@bar.ferdinand