CBD Rooftop Bar Mid Air Has Closed, with a New Venue Due to Open in December

With Ross and Sunny Lusted’s Hot-Listed Portuguese restaurant Marmelo and sibling bar Mr Mills, Russell Street hotel Hyde Melbourne Place already has an impressive food and drink slate.

But its 12th-floor rooftop offering, Mid Air, didn’t sustain quite the same buzz as the Lusteds’ venues. It has closed after less than a year, with its last service this past Sunday September 14. Come December, though, the venue will reopen as Cleo, a new restaurant and bar that like its predecessor will also have a Mediterranean bent.

Hyde Melbourne Place became part of the Accor group of hotels earlier this year, sitting within the company’s Ennismore portfolio. (It opened as Melbourne Place in November 2024.)

Cleo comes from the team at Carte Blanched, a food and beverage studio run by Ennismore.

The rooftop, with its characteristic brick cut-outs, will undergo a refurb. There will also be more of a focus on long tables for communal dining and warmer tones in the design.

Mid Air opened under chef Nicholas Deligiannis, former head chef of Scott Pickett restaurants Audrey’s in Sorrento and Estelle. Cleo will have a different head chef and a menu focused more specifically on Eastern Mediterranean flavours.

Cleo is expected to open at 130 Russell Street, Melbourne, this December.