The Aylesbury Rooftop

Perhaps you’ve eaten at the Aylesbury – Jesse and Vanessa Gerner’s long, elegant restaurant where in-house pickling, smoking and curing of produce rules. But have you ever taken the elevator to the bar upstairs? If not, that’s a situation you need to rectify. This is one of the best rooftop bars in Melbourne, replete with terrace, European wines, sharp cocktails and a separate kitchen churning out some downright tasty Spanish snacks.

When the lift opens, pass through the scalloped drapes and take a seat at the beautiful copper coated bar, or spy on worker bees in their glass towers from the shrub-lined deck. Unlike at Siglo, where the promise of open-air drinking attracts a crowd as likely to be downing beers and chain-smoking as sipping martinis, this joint has a more civilized vibe. You should definitely  be sinking cocktails. A Cherry Warhol, (dark rum, Cherry Heering, chocolate and Angostura bitters with a kick of Crème de Cacao) may sound like a sop to those who take their liquor with a big spoon of sugar, but this is a dark and brooding drink for mature tastes. Ditch work and take to the terrace for their oyster happy hour (every day before 6pm) and a bottle of bubbles – cava if you’re on a budget, Champagne if you’re not.

Or, if you need a little more ballast, get a dish of the crisp, deep fried chickpeas rolled in sweet paprika, or the dainty little burger of spicy chorizo, with a tongue of sweet red pepper and lashings of mayonnaise. We like the Aylesbury, but we straight up love this bar.