Andrew McConnell's 30 seat Martini room on Flinders Lane: frosted glasses, shellfish on ice, and the Good Food Guide's Bar of the Year.
Apollo Inn holds the ground floor of McDonald House at 165 Flinders Lane, a 1924 building at the Paris end of the lane, 300 meters from Flinders Street Station. Andrew McConnell and Jo McGann's Trader House opened it in June 2023, naming it for the 1844 pub that stood near the Russell Street corner where Gimlet sits today.
Time Out Melbourne gave it five stars and called it one of the great Melbourne cocktail bars. The Good Food Guide named it Bar of the Year 2025, a year after Bartender Magazine's Australian Bar Awards crowned it New Bar of the Year.
Thirty seats, velvet curtains, and a Martini list that does not blink. The scarcity is the experience.
Velvet curtains open onto warm timber paneling, paper topped lamps, and leather studded doors, all by Acme, the design firm behind Gimlet. Concrete Playground said the room sets your watch back to 1956; Broadsheet counted around 30 seats and called it another era.
Hosier Lane's graffiti flickers through the sheer curtains, the one reminder of the decade outside.
Four Martini styles anchor the list at 26 Australian dollars: Dry, Wet, Gibson, and Dirty. Time Out's reviewer praised a Gibson served so frosted the pickled onion only appeared halfway down the glass.
The French 75 swaps in Bollinger for 50 dollars, and Broadsheet notes guests can pull from Gimlet's 300 bottle cellar nearby. Eat from the ice: oysters, a prawn club sandwich, and a crème caramel Broadsheet rates a standout. Note the 10 percent Sunday surcharge.