Hands Down

They kept the old brass bar and its timber panelling because timber resonates, then dropped the ceiling for soundproofing, and built the room around a vintage Tannoy.

Why go

Dominic Xavier managed Bar Liberty for six years and had been circling the idea of a relaxed local for a long time before Above Board's Hayden Lambert and Manu Potoi asked him to build one with them; Pearl Diver's Alex Boon runs the bar (Broadsheet). What they made is twelve cocktails weighted to vermouth and sherry, drawn from the coasts of France and Spain, sorted into spritzes, fruity drinks, salty ones and slushies so you can order by mood rather than by decoding an ingredient list. Xavier's own complaint about the current state of cocktail menus is that "you can read six different ingredients in the drink, but you don't really know what it's gonna taste like." The house ingredient work is where the craft shows: the Swizzle runs on pastis with Marionette blackberry liqueur and the artichoke amaro Embla chef Dave Verheul makes under his Saison label. The kitchen is two snacks and stops there.

Order this / avoid

Order: the Martini, which is the drink a working Melbourne chef went out of his way to name. The Swizzle. The banana and pineapple cobbler on Madeira if you want the odd end of the list. Gildas and the paprika chips, because they are what exists. A slushie in summer, out in the parklet.
Avoid: arriving hungry, since two snacks is the whole menu. Sunday and Monday, when it is closed. Looking for a quiet table; the acoustics were engineered the other way.

What locals & experts say

Khanh Ong, chef and part-owner of George on Collins, in Broadsheet's 27-chef roundup (June 2026): "Hands Down in Fitzroy, the Martinis are the best!" ref
Dominic Xavier, co-owner, on what they were building: "We've always wanted to create a social bar. Somewhere fun, loud and a little bit loose, but still delivering the quality we're known for." ref
Broadsheet on the ownership (October 2025): "Owners from Pearl Diver, Bar Liberty and Above Board have joined forces to open a new bar in the old Bad Frankie space." That is an openings report rather than a verdict, and no critic has reviewed the bar yet. ref

Good to know

Where: 139-141 Greeves Street, Fitzroy, in the old Bad Frankie site.
Timing: Tuesday to Thursday 4pm to 11pm, Friday and Saturday 4pm to midnight. Closed Sunday and Monday.
Booking: walk-in, and built for it. Two of you or ten.
Outside: a 40-seat parklet down Greeves Street, which is the summer answer.
Sites: one premises. Bar Liberty, Above Board and Pearl Diver are separate businesses sharing owners, and a review of any of them is not evidence about this room.
Opening date: Broadsheet's dated First Look ran on 29 October 2025 and is what opened: follows. One secondary summary claims late August 2025 and could not be confirmed.
Hygiene: Victoria publishes no consumer-facing food-hygiene rating, so there is no Australian equivalent of an FSA score to record.

Jeff's take (his words)

Nothing. Melbourne has no _src saved-places export in this repo, so no Jeff note stands behind this row and none has been written for him.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — They kept the old brass bar and its timber panelling because timber resonates, then dropped the ceiling to control the noise, and put a vintage Tannoy in the middle of the room. That is a bar treating sound as an ingredient, and it tells you what the place is for. Twelve cocktails weighted to vermouth and sherry, split into spritzes, fruity, salty and slushies so you can order without decoding six ingredients. Two snacks in the whole building, gildas and paprika chips, which is a statement about what you are here to do. Khanh Ong, chef and part-owner of George on Collins, says the Martinis are the best. The people behind it managed Bar Liberty for six years and own Above Board and Pearl Diver, so the pedigree is real and the room is still forty seats of parklet and a walk-in policy. It is a should-visit rather than a must because one chef vote and no critical review is a thin evidence base for a bar nine months old.