Black Pearl
Tash Conte's family were running a restaurant on this site called Relish. One bad service ended it, she rang her father and said they should just do cocktails, and the bar opened on 2 August 2002 with the drinks coming straight out of a book called 1001 Cocktails.
Why go
The family built the fit-out themselves after work, and traded for a few weeks with no name at all while they argued about one. Black Pearl beat Ruby. The first big seller was a watermelon margarita made four blenders at a time, which is the opposite of the room's later reputation, and Conte tells that story herself in Broadsheet's oral history rather than letting anyone smooth it over. What the bar became is a training ground: staff who learned here have gone on to open rooms across the city, and one of them was on the opening bar at Byrdi. In July 2026 the Australian trade made it a finalist for Best Bartenders' Bar, which is the vote that matters most for a room like this, because it is other bars' staff naming where they drink on their own time. The back bar is kept deliberately small so the spirit range does not sprawl.
Order this / avoid
- Order: tell them what you like and let them build it. The venue's own framing of the range is
an ice cold martini, a pot of lager, or anything in between
(Black Pearl). Sausage rolls when you get peckish. - Avoid: Mondays and Tuesdays, when it is closed. And do not plan on the Attic upstairs, which now takes private function bookings rather than walk-ups.
What locals & experts say
- Juliana Yu, Time Out Melbourne, five stars:
Melburnians never needed the succession of big international awards to know that the Black Pearl is where you go for a bloody good cocktail.
She also wrote thatthe bar's record for fostering talent is unmatched,
and that the years of fanfare have not produced any self-importance:Wear whatever shoes you like.
Read it with the date in mind, because the page says in its own text that the review was written in 2019.2 - Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards (2017): named Best International Cocktail Bar.1
- Australian Bar Awards (2026): a finalist for Best Bartenders' Bar, announced 8 July 2026 on a peer vote of the trade.4
- Tash Conte, owner, on why the bar works:
Making drinks is fun, but it can be two-dimensional.
1 - Not named by any chef. The 74-pick Melbourne industry corpus in this repo carries no vote for Black Pearl, which is worth stating for a bar this famous.
Good to know
- Where: 304 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Look for the faded Relish lettering still on the outside.
- Timing: Wednesday to Sunday, 5pm to 3am. Time Out's page says daily and the venue's own site says five nights, so plan on the five.
- Booking: walk-in only. The Attic upstairs takes private function bookings.
- The Attic: opened above the bar in 2011 with table service and a longer list. It runs as a function space now.
- Safety: Victoria publishes no per-venue hygiene rating. Safe Food Victoria's register of court convictions under the Food Act 1984 was read in full on 1 August 2026 and does not list this venue.7
Verdict
should-visit — Tash Conte's family were running a restaurant here called Relish and losing money on it. One service went wrong, she walked a kitchen hand out, refunded the room and rang her father to say they should just do cocktails. That was 2 August 2002, and the first menus came out of a book called 1001 Cocktails. Twenty-four years later the room still runs walk-in only, five nights, until 3am, at $$ rather than $$$, and the thing it is genuinely best at is training bartenders: the Australian trade voted it a Best Bartenders' Bar finalist in July 2026, which is other people's staff saying this is where they go. Read the accolades honestly, though. The big international one is from 2017 and the five-star review is 2019 text wearing a 2024 date. Go late, go without a booking, tell them what you drink. Do not plan an evening around the Attic, which is now a function room.