Cloakroom Bar: cocktails in the clouds

Everything about the Shadow Play building on the corner of City Rd and Clarendon St is mysterious, even illusive, but nothing more so than its 46th floor cocktail venue, Cloakroom Bar.

Sitting among the clouds, The Cloakroom’s truly unique perspective of Melbourne is only matched by a cocktail menu and a business model with equal intrigue.

The Cloakroom brand was first conceptualised in Brisbane back in 2007, not as a place to drink, but as a tailor delivering some of the best “made-to-measure” suits Australia has to offer.

Fast forward 16 years, with locations in Brisbane, Montreal, Tokyo, and now Melbourne, Cloakroom’s reputation for laser-like precision is bursting through the world of tailoring onto Melbourne’s hospitality scene.

“The first conversations to open both the tailoring business and cocktail bar in Melbourne came with Jonathan [Hallinan] who is both a business partner and the developer of the building,” Callum O’Sullivan, one part of the five-person team behind The Cloakroom brand, said.

“The two businesses operate completely separately. If you come in for a cocktail, we aren’t going to try to sell you a suit, but if you are in here being measured up for a wedding or special event, we can offer you a pretty amazing cocktail, rather than just a couple of bottles of whisky in the corner."

When you’re coming in here for a drink, it’s not just the view that you are experiencing, you also have some of the best bartenders in Melbourne making you a pretty special cocktail.

The intimate 40-person confines of Cloakroom Bar pushes and pulls you between panoramic views over the city and Port Phillip Bay to its illuminated golden bar harbouring some of the best local and imported liquors.

Their list of 10 cocktails reads as a manifesto in refreshing refinement, from the crowd favourite Gabrielle’s Punch, which sees a mixture of a house rum blend meet melon, strawberry, coconut and Champaign acid, to the Silhouette, a mixture of 78°  Australian whiskey, shiitake, Umeshu and Sakura Bitters.

“Our cocktails follow a pattern of today’s lighter drinking habits, and our team likes to get pretty experimental with liquors and ingredients,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

“Every morning when I wake up and look at our figures from the night before, the Gabrielle’s Punch is always the leader, but among our other popular drinks is the Viktor and Wolf, a 78° Better Gin, rosé vermouth, cherry blossom, lemon and ginger beer.”

“Classic cocktails make up a big portion of what we sell, but our customers like to have the chance to try something a bit different, or be guided depending on their taste, by one of our experienced bartenders.”

Mr O’Sullivan and his team have partnered with Australian gin heavyweights, Four Pillars, to present Sunset Sessions, which are running daily from 5pm to 8pm until daylight saving ends on April 2.​

Bookings can be made on the Open Table booking system. •

For more information: cloakroombar.co/Melbourne or instagram.com/cloakroombarmel