By far my favorite place that I've found in Melbourne, possibly in Aus! I can't speak highly enough…read moreof every aspect of this bar. Intimate setting, yet quite comfortable. Always an excellent music selection, with footy on the tv if that's what you're lookin for. The staff is WONDERFUL. so personable, quite willing to give their recommendations if you ask (and you should- they haven't steered me wrong yet!). The nachos, add beef, are easily the best nachos I've ever had- loaded with toppings, seasoned chips, absolutely delicious. Quite a diverse menu, with plenty of options depending on your hunger level. Great wine and beer selection, and a solid cocktail list too!

Food is awesome - Baked mushrooms - I could just have a plate of them on their own…read more The staff are easy to chat with and service was well timed.

Maybe I was unlucky but I drank a Yarra river wine (a red wine) that was available by the glass and…read morethe thing was barely drinkable. I do believe that the bottle had been opened for too long and that the wine had oxidized. This was confirmed by my friend who tasted the wine and came to the same sad conclusion. PS: the beer fridge looks good.

My wishes have come true at Vino Central. It is a bar & bottle shop combined! Buy a bottle of wine…read more& just pay an extra $1 per glass! Nice inside with polished pine floors & walls lined with wine & fridges filled with beer. Though we came in at the tail end of someone's 30th birthday, they made sure we had a table & were comfortable. The ONLY downside was the single bathroom up the rickety stairs.

A good range of dishes including some gf options. Also a good range of drinks. Try the Turkish…read morewines. Their long hours are a big help to the social life Recommended.

Who doesn't love pairing Boggle with cocktails and imported beer? Kelvin Bar in Northcote is one…read morebloody cool place. The room is dim, the drinks are many and the orange scooter parked out front is the best indicator that the door will be open. The crowd here is very cool. No douche bags tend to frequent it and this is a massive plus. While monopoly and scrabble aren't the average patrons idea of a wicked night out, they have me exceptionally satisfied. Besides, incorporating bets and shots into these games is one way to encourage even the most unenthusiastic friend into an extreme word finding Boggle-off. The vibe in here is the reason I keep coming back and the comfy chairs, great service and good company do nothing to change my mind. Awesome place.

Its name might say 'Working man's club' but Kelvin Bar - or Kelvin's as the locals have it - is…read moremore like Mad Men, but with Boggle in lieu of secretaries and a soundtrack of Fat Freddy's Drop instead of Roy Orbison. A heady and seemingly irresistible combination to the retro obsessed, the unathletic but competitive, and, erm, New Zealand music fans. I.e. me. If, like me, the only reason you hunger after an iPhone is for the endless possibilities of the Scrabble app, you'll love Kelvins. The décor is faithfully early seventies, the wine list refreshingly organic, and the cocktails pretty damn good. But what really makes this place special is the veritable smorgasbord of board games on offer. Not only is gaming of the board variety accepted at Kelvins, it's positively encouraged. And with Kelvin's offering games numbering Yahtzee, Monopoly, Guess Who and more, you can easily while away the hours over a bottle of organic wine and a tryst with a board game in this unassuming and under-celebrated but really quite awesome Westgarth haunt.

Being located in Eaglemont, the local clientele at this cellar expect a varied selection of liquor,…read morewine and other libations. The cellar offers an extensive range of premium & clean skin wine as well as a variety of local & imported beer. The last shop on the Eaglemont village block is part cellar store, part wine bar. This location survives supermarket discounts and bulk buys, so they must be doing something right. Customer service is what they succeed in. Personalized service with genuine hospitality and knowledge. They hold Wine tastings on the first Saturday of every month from 10am & a selection of Australian cheese, pate and other nibbles are available from their deli. They host live entertainment every Thursday night (no cover charge) & Friday night features AFL on the big screen. Eaglemont Cellars knows what it's local customers want.

The Eagle Bar (like the suburb it is in) is a hidden gem of Melbourne town!…read more Jump off the train and duck in for a quick jar or ten! Enjoy the ambience of the open air beer garden out the back in summer, or jostle for position near the fireplace in winter. Live music acts are a regular feature, squeezing in a quick set between footy matches on the screen. The 40-plus crowd have a firm grip on the venue but welcome the younger crowd with open arms. On a good day, it's easy to pull up a pew and still be there ten hours later. Get around it.

I don't often travel into the Northcote area that much these days, but on some occasions, you find…read morea welcoming surprise. I visited here for a friend's birthday party, and I have to say, it's a lovely little space for one. The place advertises that it's free function hire. I'm not sure if that means that there's a minimum bar spend that needs to be reached, or if it's actually free, but with digs like this, and the right amount of people, you should be able to meet the target spectacularly. It has a dark with little pinprick of light decor inside, while outside, is a cute courtyard out back stacked with plentiful outdoor furniture that is both comfortable and stylish. Sagi Bar also offers catering with the usual fingerfood fare eg. mini dimsims, samosas etc. The drinks on offer are all bottled. Sorry, no getting a pint of Coopers here. But, there's the standard fare of spirits, wine and beer. One special mention is the pint bottles of Little Creatures. Sure, it can take a while to sink those down, but you'll soon be going back for more. Rounding out the drinks are bottles of wine for purchase. While a little pricey for a bar, the selection of Pepperjack and associated brands are a treat. If you're looking for a place to host a party, you could do a lot worse than Sagi Bar. Well situated, easy to reach and to get home from, and unlikely to have gatecrashers wander in and ruin your fun.

This self claimed friendly local hotel is just that. The bistro and bar is a light and airy space…read moreand the best place to take advantage of the daily meal offers.Not surprisingly for those who visit pubs with me- my favourite dinner deal is Parma night! The small gaming area is suitably closed off from the rest of the hotel which encourages local families to stop by. This hotel is considered by locals to be the 'runner-up' hotel in Heidelberg-not always a bad thing-that means they try harder! It comes complete with the following features: Cafe Bistro Outdoor Terrace Function Venue Bottle Shop Wine Bar The small wine bar is a great place to stop for an after work drink due to the large open air window with bar stools, perfect for watching the world go by. Tip: End your work week with the Live music on every Friday from 8pm.

Visited this place last night for a dinner & drinks catch up with friends from the high school…read moredays. We booked a nice table out the back area which was rather cute and pretty. I admit Heidelberg/Ivanhoe was my 'just turned 18' stomping ground, I remember the very very old days where this place had yucky sticky carpet, dark wood furniture and a dodgy atmosphere. Since then they have renovated and updated a number of times and it all looks great. I have had a fair number of fun nights at this venue over the years and last night was just as fun. A few of us ordered meals, and the opinion around the table that they were OK, nothing to get too excited about. Myself and another had the "Catch Of The Day" from the special menu. Described as: Oven baked salmon, served with fondant potato, rosemary roasted carrot, baby corn and parsnip purée ($23.90). (Pic uploaded). I enjoyed my dish. It was at the start a tiny bit bland but the nice juicy slice of lemon added the right hit of flavour to the fish to make it rather delicious. I ended up eating and enjoying everything on the plate (except the baby corn, baby corn is weird man!). Even the carrots were delicious and I can usually take or leave those. And fondant potatoes, never heard of them until now but YUM. Can't say much about the other means. My friends pizza looked pretty substantial however she said it felt a bit too fatty too eat much of. They also have a deal advertised via Facebook, that if you check into the venue via mobile you can get half price drinks for the first half of the footy. Bargain! They had TVs all around showing the great Grand Final replay where Hawthorn played brilliant footy. A nice touch to end the night :) Drink service was also friendly and came with a smile. Perhaps I am biased due to my previous fun memories of this venue so 4 starts for this place. I enjoyed my time at The Barkly and hope to be back.

I had wanted to come to Bar Nonno for some time. It's nearby and always had a bit of a buzz about…read moreit. Unfortunately, our night wasn't that great here I'd have to say. This is not a cheap restaurant. It's expensive actually, and at these prices you'd want a good experience. We didn't get that experience. It started with a poor almost rude and dismissive greeting at the narrow front of the restaurant. Service at McDonalds is friendlier than the cold, disinterested reaction I got at the front here from a waitress when I arrived. This was not the action of a skilled service industry worker. Rather, it was the reaction of someone who thought they were actually doing a favour for the customer. In fact it was a portent. Service was slow when we were seated. We had to remind the serving staff twice about our pre dinner drink which ultimately seemed to have been sitting at the front uncollected for a while. People who arrived quite some time after us had their drinks brought well before us which made little sense although familiarity suggested they were regulars. When we came to order two out of four main courses were off the menu already - the duck and the barramundi - the former I had chosen beforehand from reviews as a good choice for me, and was rather irked when I found it wasn't on. How does that even happen at a restaurant with such a small menu? Basically it meant I had to choose something to eat I didn't want, and that's exactly what I did. We were eventually given four small pieces of bread and olive oil, but our side plates had been taken. That meant application of a bit of skill to eat the bread without dropping lots of olive oil on the table. We succeeded only partially. The entrees and mains were decent but not exceptional. The best was the calamari which was very well done. My gnocchi which I hadn't really wanted to order was ok, but nothing exceptional. My initial decision not to select it was sound. We ordered char grilled broccolini as a side. I think I counted six stalks for $14. The char grilled flavor was good. The hard uncooked nature of the stalks was not. This was a good, simple dish not well executed essentially. We should have sent it back. Wine is expensive here. We had a Pinot Gris and a Pinot Noir then a Shiraz at $15 a glass. They were ok wines but not spectacular. We tried to order a cheese platter to finish but failed. It hadn't arrived after 20 minutes and we had made the booking on the basis that they could get us through the meal and to the nearby Westgarth cinema in time for our 9.30 movie. No go. The platter would be another 10 minutes we were told and that was several minutes too many. Service was so so. I've described the very strange "greeting" we had here. Our direct waitress tried hard but battled to overcome her own manifest limitations. She didn't know the couple of specials and had to resort to notes. She also failed to mention that two of the four mains were off until I tried to order one of them. She also kept referring to us as "guys", a habit she repeated at every other table in our vicinity. We eventually left here pretty underwhelmed. The meal cost nearly $200 for not a lot of food and wine. Both were serviceable but not exceptional. I didn't get what I wanted. The service was middling at best. The venue was just ok. It's a bit cramped and noisy and the whole thing thoroughly overrated. Maybe on a better night Bar Nonno would be ok. Certainly they'd want to do an awful lot better than they did during our visit if they wish to make this a good restaurant.

Apparently there is no pizza! They need to remove any menu that refers to pizza as I was hoping to…read morehave the one in the image. Ohh well at least staff were kind enough to point me to another local pizza place!