Bar Carnation opened earlier this year in the Rathdowne Street shopfront previously occupied by Gerald’s Bar for nearly 20 years. To say those are big shoes to fill, culturally speaking, and to say that Bar Carnation is more than filling them, would both be understatements.
I’ve often said that what Melbourne does best, despite some excellent examples of purely cocktail and spirits focused bars, is the crossover venue. Places like Bar Bellamy, Bar Liberty, Caretaker’s Cottage and The Lincoln that blur the lines between wine bar, cocktail bar, pub and restaurant. Into that tradition now steps Bar Carnation, and they’re doing it in a way that feels fresh and exciting.
I’ll leave it to others more qualified to talk about the food and wine at Bar Carnation, the more casual outpost of Fitzroy’s Carnation Canteen. But suffice to say these guys have some serious culinary chops, and if fermented grape juice is your jam, you will not be disappointed. With the kitchen open until 10:45pm every night, it’s a great place to have in the back pocket for a late dinner, too.
But in recent weeks I’d also heard whisperings of some real fun being had with the cocktails here thanks to the deeply unserious, yet highly technique and ingredient-driven, approach of bar manager Belle Johnson-Geor.
Watching Belle at work — weighing glasses on a kitchen scale to make sure every cocktail is poured accurately, a separate cutting board for perfectly ripe blood orange to make sure its sanguine juices don’t stain other garnishes — there’s an attention to detail that even the most pedantic cocktail nerds would struggle to achieve. Even rarer, Belle does it with the social and emotional intelligence of your favourite old school publican.
Belle calls her regulars by name, chats to them about their week, jokes with the other staff, and never hesitates to pour something equal parts ridiculous and delicious. This week’s offerings include a Japanese Slipper made with melon liqueur by Japanese sake producer Ōta Shuzo, or a Kalimotxo spiked with Saison Rabarbaro amaro and topped with Mexican Coke from a thick glass bottle. More of this energy, please.
I took the chance this week to sit down with Belle and Bar Carnation co-owner Audrey Shaw to talk about how mixed drinks fit into the overall offering here, one of Melbourne’s most-hyped openings of 2026, and the number 34 spot on the Boothby Best Bars VIC Awards last month.
FRED SIGGINS: So tell me about the cocktail program, how does it jive with the food and wine offering?
AUDREY SHAW: It’s really fun and ambitious for us to take the cocktail program just as seriously as we do our wine and food. We’ve always focused on things being seasonal and locally sourced in the kitchen, so we wanted to put someone with Belle’s skills in place to see how that would look in terms of cocktails. We’re trying to do three new cocktails every month, and keeping it seasonal, so by the time each different season rolls around we have completely new drinks. But in the same way we do with our food, we’re not trying to re-invent the wheel, we’re taking classics and putting our own spin on them.
BELLE JOHNSON-GEOR: It’s nice to be guided by seasonality, by produce rather than spirits. In a lot of other places I’ve worked, you get given a spirit and told to build a drink around that, but here it’s the opposite. This week I climbed over someone’s back fence to pinch calamansi limes because they’re perfect right now, and then I think, what spirit would work with that flavour?
We love pop culture as well, and shouting out our peers, so we’ve got cocktails from New York bars in the 2010s, one we used to do at Eau De Vie Melbourne that’s a Nathan Beasley recipe, so you might get something 100 percent original, or something we love from elsewhere. It’s a way for us to acknowledge the people that came before us and bring that into our own space, the same way we do with our food.
AUDREY SHAW: And we have such a dynamic team, so they all really want to learn about the cocktail side of things, and Belle is doing such a good job training everyone up. The whole team does wine training together, so we all do cocktail training together, too.
Clockwise from top: at the bar; the Freezer Door Martini; Kalimotxo; and their Japanese Slipper take. Photos: Fred Siggins
FRED SIGGINS: Belle, this is your first time running your own bar program, correct? What’s that been like, especially with so much attention on the venue?
BELLE JOHNSON-GEOR: Yeah, it’s been really rewarding, and super exciting. A friend who works at Canteen recommended me for the job, but [the owners and I] all went into it not knowing a lot about each other. They were very up front about not having much cocktail experience, and so everyone has been really trusting. I got free rein to set everything up exactly how I wanted it, and it has definitely been challenging but also really affirming to feel like I can do something like that.
AUDREY SHAW: That lack of established cocktail knowledge [in the rest of the team] also means we’ve been able to create a unique identity for our bar program a lot sooner, because we’re not having to push back so much against conventional wisdom.
BELLE JOHNSON-GEOR: And I just want to have fun with it. It’s a nice juxtaposition with us in crisp white shirts and the white table cloths, but then you get a pink drink with a star floating on top, because it’s cute and drinks should be fun.
FRED SIGGINS: I love that. I’m a big advocate of cocktails not taking themselves too seriously.
AUDREY SHAW: And if people are coming in to spend their discretionary income, we want to make sure it’s really worth it by giving them a genuine experience, not just liquid in a glass.
BELLE JOHNSON-GEOR: I pushed pretty hard on keeping our house martinis at $22, and we have a $12 house wine. We want that pub mentality. Everyone should be able to come here and have a drink without feeling like it has to be a special occasion. We want people to do whatever the fuck they want. Have a $12 house red, or spend $1,000 on champagne — just have fun.
AUDREY SHAW: We also have the big glass-doored wine fridge in the back room so people can go and browse if they’re not as confident with reading a wine list.
FRED SIGGINS: That’s a great idea. We need places where people can come and learn about wine, rather than feeling like they have to know everything before walking in the door.
Given that you guys have been so busy right from day one, what are some of the things you’ve learned in that intense environment?
BELLE JOHNSON-GEOR: Gearing up for what to do when people are lined up around the block for cocktails is a big learning. We want it to be excellent, but also fast and fun, so how do we mitigate that? Now if we’re really busy we just offer people a beer first. It’s changed the whole atmosphere, because it brings a level of fun and hospitality to an otherwise stressful situation.
FRED SIGGINS: What have been some of the crowd favourite drinks?
BELLE JOHNSON-GEOR: Definitely the Enzoni Bianco, essentially a white Enzoni [the traditional being Campari, gin and lemon with muddled grapes], so we’ve done it with Suze instead of Campari and a touch of saline. It’s one of those drinks where people see a tray go out and everyone’s like, “what’s that?”
Also the Liquid Swords.
FRED SIGGINS: Great name!
BELLE JOHNSON-GEOR: Yeah we reference music a lot in our cocktail names. This one is a little more gastronomical with a blend of blanco tequila and raicilla fat-washed with tarragon oil, mixed with a salted grapefruit oleo and charged with CO2. I was inspired by the Margarita seltzer at Cantina OK!.
AUDREY SHAW: The two most popular cocktails are really at different ends of the spectrum of our offering, but they both have all the elements we love; distinct, seasonal, a bit of technique, but when you see it in the glass it’s very elegant.
Around the Bars
Golden Pubtime. The owner of kick-ass Collingwood pub Goldy’s Tavern has just purchased a huge, three-storey pub, formerly the Royal Hotel, in Clifton Hill. The gorgeous old public house has been closed for over 10 years, so it’ll be wonderful to see it open and trading again, hopefully sometime in late 2027 after planned renovations.
Froffing For It. Speaking of beer, Bodriggy Brew Pub is doing a new hospo night every Sunday, with a free pot on arrival and $15 Negronis and Tommy’s Margaritas. You just have to prove you work hospo the first time you visit and they’ll give you a hospo ID to use in the future.
Job Watch: Getting Baked. Bakery Hill Whisky Distillery in Kensington is looking for a Distillery Door Host to be the face of their tasting room, guiding tastings and pouring drinks. This is a casual, two day per week role requiring availability on Fridays and Saturdays, so could be perfect for someone studying, or doing day-walker stuff who wants to get some exposure to whisky production. Send expressions of interest and CV to cj@bakeryhill.com.
