Polly Bar

Polly opened on Brunswick Street over 25 years ago and is reputed to be the oldest still-surviving cocktail bar in Melbourne — one of the city's first. The room takes its cues from 1920s Paris boudoirs: plush velvety interiors, low lighting, and an atrium out back. The bar team carries decades of combined cocktail experience, and the drinks list runs to more than 20 craft cocktails alongside absinthe, whisky and spirits tastings.

The non-alcoholic program sits as its own printed section on the menu, below the cocktail list. Polly describes its mocktails as "expertly created, with the same attention to flavours that goes into all our cocktail creations," ranging from bright and fresh to creamy and indulgent. The four named house builds are Summer In Fitzroy, Teas Me, Sassy Lassie and Milk Bar — a proper zero-proof list rather than a single token option, which is what makes Polly worth a non-drinker's visit.

Beyond the standing menu, the bartenders will also mix mocktails to taste, and the venue runs cocktail classes, whisky and absinthe tastings, and a high tea with a twist. Open Wednesday through Sunday from 5pm (2pm Saturdays), it's a late-night Fitzroy institution that treats the alcohol-free crowd as more than a compromise.

The bar is explicit about how it treats the alcohol-free list, which is unusual enough to be worth quoting from its own menu: for guests who want to indulge in a non-alcoholic way, Polly says it has a range of mocktails created with the same attention to flavours that goes into all of its cocktail creations, running from bright and fresh through to creamy and indulgent. The mocktails sit below the cocktails on the same menu rather than on a separate card.

That placement is the tell. A bar that prints its zero-proof drinks at the foot of the main list has to keep them current every time the cocktail menu changes; a bar that keeps them on a separate sheet usually does not. Polly is an ornate, low-lit Fitzroy cocktail room on Brunswick Street that trades late — Wednesday and Thursday from 5pm, Friday from 5pm until 3am, Saturday from 2pm until 3am and Sunday from 5pm — which makes it one of the more useful late options for someone who wants the night out without the drinking.