Passing through the big double doors and walking up the wide, carpeted staircase at 7 Alfred Place in the Melbourne CBD feels like entering hallowed hospo ground. This is the former site of Mietta’s, the legendary restaurant and salon that gave Melbourne much of its continental dining education back in the 1980s and, by the way, where the mighty Japanese Slipper was created.
These days the ground-level restaurant is simply named after the address. Part of the Hunter St. Hospitality group (formerly known as The Rockpool Dining Group), 7 Alfred Place now serves steak frites and pretty much nothing else (it’s literally the only thing on the menu apart from a side salad and dessert). But up that big staircase, the second floor bar, which was most recently a whisky-focused venue, is set to re-open on April 22nd as a botanically-themed cocktail bar called Bar Ferdinand, with the talented Greg Thompson (Apollo Inn, Gimlet, Dinner by Heston) at the helm.
The beautiful, heritage room has high ceilings and is clad in beveled mirrors, making the space feel bigger and reflecting huge floral arrangements and maroon marble tabletops that match the colour of the smart, tuxedo-style jackets the team are wearing. There’s old world charm in spades, but it doesn’t feel stuffy, and I’ll admit I’m a sucker for a terrarium like the misty little globe of moss and ferns that adorns the bartop.
“The name comes from Ferdinand von Mueller, a German-Australian scientist who was appointed as Victoria’s first official government botanist,” in 1853, according to Hunter Street beverage director Ali Toghani. Von Mueller, amongst other exploits, founded Melbourne’s botanical gardens, and established the National Herbarium of Victoria to house the many samples he collected over the years.
“This building has a lot of history; it was home to Melbourne’s German Club in the late 1800s, it was the Royal Navy Club for a while, and of course there was Mietta’s,” says Ali. “So we got a lot of inspiration from that history, but wanted to evolve it into something modern with hospitality at its core.”
The concept for Bar Ferdinand evolved from their research of the building and its early users, Greg says. “So we started looking at the Botanical Gardens and thinking, what would that look like as a cocktail menu?”