Marion

Marion opened on Gertrude Street in 2015 as Andrew McConnell's fourth venue on the strip, spanning two shopfronts next door to his two-hat restaurant Cutler & Co. The room keeps the bones of the site's past life as a metal-plating factory - white-washed brick, an untouched original floor, black leather, dark wood and ceiling-high wine racks around a small curved bar, with an open kitchen anchoring the left-hand side. In 2025 it celebrated ten years and was inducted into Broadsheet's Ten-Year Club, cementing it as one of the venues that helped set the template for Melbourne's wine-bar boom.

The draw is one of the most comprehensive wine lists in the neighbourhood, running deep on orange wines and less-familiar varietals like gruner veltliner, chenin blanc and gamay, alongside a daily-changing menu of oysters, bay scallops and charcuterie from McConnell's own butcher, Meatsmith.

For guests skipping alcohol, Marion holds a real low-and-no section rather than a lone token option. Time Out Melbourne highlights an Italian Orange Spritz made with verjus and tonic, a Spritz Veneziano, and a sparkling salted raspberry-and-cranberry drink - builds that lean on the same verjus-forward, ingredient-led thinking the kitchen applies everywhere else.

It is a moody, grown-up room built for lingering, and the non-alcoholic pours are treated with the same care as the wine, which makes it a rare zero-proof-friendly stop among Fitzroy's serious drinking dens.

A wine bar is the hardest room in which to not drink, which is what makes this one worth naming. Time Out's guide to drinking in Melbourne without alcohol puts it directly: Marion may be Andrew McConnell's wine bar, but if you are off the wine there are still plenty of low- and zero-alcohol options, and it names three — an Italian Orange Spritz built with verjus and tonic, a Spritz Veneziano, and a sparkling salted raspberry and cranberry drink.

Verjus is the detail worth noticing. Pressed from unripe grapes, it carries the acidity and grip that make wine work at the table without any alcohol, and it is the ingredient a wine bar reaches for when it is taking the problem seriously rather than reaching for cordial. Served long in the same glassware, in the same moody room, it reads as a drink rather than as an abstention — which is the whole job on a table where everyone else has a glass of something.