Black Kite Commune
The house cocktail is called Raspberry, contains no raspberry, and exists because the bar manager tasted one during Beethoven's fifth symphony.
Why go
Jess Clayfield came from Gin Palace and wrote this menu around a sensory crossover she had at the symphony, then built the drink to match the phantom flavour: Pisco, rose-tea-infused verjuice, gooseberry syrup and a rhubarb aperitif (Broadsheet). Her own summary is that it tastes like a raspberry jube and it has no raspberry in it at all.
Owner Ben Luzz opened it in May 2023 in the old Neapoli space on Russell Place, two doors from his own Gin Palace and Bar Ampere, and pitched it at Melbourne's mid-century supper clubs. The back bar goes where most CBD cocktail rooms do not, into rare Australian bottlings including Sullivan's Cove brandy and Archie Rose. Wine is grouped by how it feels rather than what grape it is, and the skin-contact and low-intervention end is bottle-only.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Raspberry, then Triumph, which runs on tepache, Armagnac, Meyer lemon and a champagne vinegar shrub. Ask for something Australian off the spirits shelf. Wild boar croquettes to keep you upright. If you are not drinking, ask the bartender to build you something; there is no printed list for that.
- Avoid: the upstairs banquettes if you want to see the room, since the gold service button is convenient and also parks you away from the bar. Do not go hunting a low-intervention wine by the glass; those are bottle-only.
What locals & experts say
- Sonia Nair, Time Out Melbourne, four stars:
Moody, intimate and tastefully lit, Black Kite Commune is the latest addition to the illustrious Russell Place
. The page carries an October 2024 date and says in its own banner that the text was written in 2023, so this is a 2023 verdict.2 - Jess Clayfield, venue manager, on the drink itself:
It tastes like a raspberry jube and it has no raspberry in it at all.
1 - Ben Luzz, owner, on the reference he was chasing:
It was a supper club so there was lots of brandy and whisky and cocktails.
He had read about a room called Nighthawk's Retreat and set out to rebuild the feeling of it.1 - No chef vote. All 74 industry picks from 44 Melbourne chefs and writers were checked on 1 August 2026. Neither this bar nor its two siblings on the same laneway is named by any of them.
Good to know
- Where: 30 Russell Place, a CBD laneway off Bourke Street, in the space Neapoli used to hold.
- Sites: one premises. Gin Palace, Bar Ampere and Bijou Bottle Store are separate rooms under the same owner, and a review of one is not evidence about another.
- Booking: table service throughout, and worth booking on a weekend.
- Non-alcoholic: no printed list. The bartenders make one to order.
- Hygiene: Victoria publishes no consumer-facing food-hygiene rating, so there is no Australian equivalent of an FSA score to record.
Verdict
should-visit — The cocktail menu came out of a symphony. Jess Clayfield was sitting through Beethoven's fifth, tasted raspberries that were not in the room, and wrote a list around that crossover, which produced a drink called Raspberry with no raspberry in it: Pisco, rose-tea-infused verjuice, gooseberry syrup and a rhubarb aperitif. That is a real idea executed rather than a fit-out with a story attached, and Time Out gave it four stars. The back bar leans hard on rare Australian spirits, Sullivan's Cove and Archie Rose among them, which is the more interesting choice in a city with a hundred imported gin lists. It holds at should-visit for two stated reasons: the only critical verdict on it was written in 2023, and no Melbourne chef among the 74 industry picks names this bar or either of the sister rooms on the same lane. Good for a date or a proper night, less good if you want the industry's own answer.