Above 7 Alfred in Melbourne’s CBD, Hunter St. Hospitality is opening Bar Ferdinand – a 21-seat cocktail bar led by Beverage Director Ali Toghani and Bar Manager Greg Thompson, landing on 22 April inside a heritage-listed 1885 building.
It’s small, deliberate, and built around a single idea: cocktails as a walk through a garden. Not in a literal, garnish-heavy way – more in how each drink is structured, named, and experienced. The menu is split into collections like Rose, Fern, Camellia, Eucalypt and Arid, giving the bar a framework that stays put while the drinks shift with season and direction.
For Thompson, whose background runs through Apollo Inn and Gimlet, that structure is the point. It gives the list consistency without locking it in.
“A Rose Garden cocktail in a few months’ time will be very different to what it is now, and that’s true of the whole menu. What shifts is how each one is expressed at that moment, depending on the produce, the season and where we want to take it. Sometimes that means thinking less literally. With Fern Garden, for example, you can’t really work from fern as a flavour, so it becomes about capturing the feeling of walking through a fernery: the drop in temperature, the earthiness, the smell of rain. That challenge is what keeps the menu alive”, Thompson said.
The drinks lean technical without feeling heavy-handed. Camellia builds from a house blend of teas steeped into fino sherry, landing bright with a savoury edge. Rose goes the other way with distilled petals, rosé vermouth and Macedon Ranges rosé, force-carbonated into something floral but tight. Herb is all texture, with gin, macadamia orgeat and clarified citrus pulling in fig leaf and sage, while Eucalypt cuts sharp and clean, pairing Calvados with nashi pear wine and eucalyptus soda.
Two house signatures sit outside the garden entirely. A House Martini keeps things cold and precise with gin, vodka, Cocchi Americano, and apple mint, while a reworked Japanese Slipper nods to the building’s history – the original was created on-site back in the ‘80s, but dials it into something lighter, sharper and less neon.
The rest of the offer stays tight: a short wine list, bottled beer, and a food menu built like a polished snack spread – oysters, anchovies, pretzels, terrine, all designed to sit alongside the drinks, not compete with them.
Inside, the room does exactly what it needs to. Herringbone floors, marble, brass, and deep leather set the base, with a hanging installation of dried Queen Anne’s Lace pulling focus above the bar. There’s greenery throughout, but it’s restrained – more suggestion than theme.
At 21 seats, it’s not trying to be everything to everyone. It’s built for people who want to sit, stay, and work through a menu that has a point of view. In a city that doesn’t exactly lack cocktail bars, Bar Ferdinand isn’t chasing scale – it’s going small, specific, and quietly ambitious.