Rocket to this Lebanese-leaning wine bar for $10 wraps and half-price ‘habibi’ happy hour

The Moon. Moon Dog. Moon Cruller. Moondrop. Rocket Wine. The sky is evidently not the limit for Melbourne venue operators searching for a name out of this world. One flying under the radar is Lebanese-leaning Brunswick East bar The Rocket Society.

It’s coming up to three years since it opened as a sibling for Middle Eastern restaurant Rumi, which chef-owner Joseph Abboud had just relocated from Lygon Street to East Brunswick Village. The slick development on Nicholson Street has gone on to become as much of a hub for housing as hospitality, now home to a Hagen’s butcher (which doubles as a hot chook shop), a To Be Frank bakery, the Korean Dodam, and more.

Anchor hospo tenant Rumi marks a milestone in 2026, celebrating 20 years of expanding Melbourne’s Middle Eastern dining horizons (and impressing Anthony Bourdain along the way). By all means, book in for a banquet. But next door in The Rocket Society, Abboud has spawned a spin-off that’s also worth raising a glass to.

If word of mouth is anything to go by, you might think this particular rocket had failed to launch as astronomically as Abboud might have hoped. It feels like there’s been little chatter about it until recently. But you could say The Rocket Society’s fans are less talk, more action.

Sauntering through East Brunswick Village, I’m overtaken by a couple on a mission, beelining straight from their apartment building to The Rocket Society. They order just in the nick of time for “happy habibi hour”; between 5pm and 6pm every day, a handful of sips and barbecue sticks are half-price. Around them, alfresco tables of (more-punctual) locals lounge with their wallet-friendly wines in the late-afternoon light.

Meanwhile, I’m having apple pie. Lady Cedar, the headline cocktail, makes dessert drinkable (and night-starting instead of night-ending). It’s warmly spiced and supercharged by Melbourne Moonshine’s Apple Pie Shine, while Abboud’s own Big Jack’s Arak, a new small-batch collaboration with local distillery Bandesh, invites anise to the party. (As does a dedicated section of the drinks list, spanning arak, Turkish raki and Greek ouzo.)

The wine program covers even more ground, so why not venture somewhere you’ve never ventured before? We find Croatian and Slovenian expressions by the glass. But to get to Lebanon, we have to go by the bottle. Our coy, casually dressed server kicks into gear, their intimate knowledge of the list leading us to an earthy, amphora-aged white from women-led lo-fi wine label Heya, based in Dimane, a village in Lebanon’s north.

Expect the drinks to pique your interest, but this isn’t a place to skip the snacks. Small plates and charcoal-fired skewers come fresh and fast from the Rumi kitchen, upholding the same finger-licking standard. The hummus game is strengthened by the utter unctuousness of barramundi awarma (cooked down in its own belly fat). Not to mention the leopard-spotted, sesame- and nigella-seedy flatbread you must add on to scoop it all up.

Falafels resemble mini meteorites, fried until intensely brown but gloriously herby-green once cracked open. Rumi’s famous chicken wings are on the menu too, with the acronym “IYKYK”; if you know, you know, and if you don’t, you should definitely find out. Things you could also get threaded on sticks: sumac-spiced chicken hearts (“entry-level offal”, my dining partner quips), and Meredith Dairy goat kofta.

By day, many of the menu stars are wrapped into Lebanese flatbread sandwiches (or “sondwishes”) and sold for $10 a pop – or $19.90 with fries, tahini mayo and a drink.

It’s increasingly rare for a neighbourhood bar to trade every night of the week, let alone every day – from 11am. It’s not rocket science, but The Rocket Society should get more credit for its dependable hours, on top of the lunch-to-dinner deliciousness, and drinks that break the mould. More of us ought to add it to our regular wine-bar rotation.

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