This 15-year-old laneway institution serves reliably good food and booze till 3am daily

“I hope you wake up in your own bed tomorrow!” exclaims a spritz-sipping guy on a date to an absinthe-sipping guy with his mates. The former has mistaken the ornate self-service fountain on the latter’s table as being full of the potent, anise-flavoured spirit, when in fact it’s ice-cold water, a traditional French method for DIY diluting absinthe. They clear up the confusion among themselves, while an onlooking waiter laughs like he’s seen it all before.

For us, it’s drinks and a show at Bar Ampere, the late-night laneway institution that in 2026 celebrates 15 absinthe-fuelled years hidden away on Russell Place in the CBD.

It was 2011 when drinks maverick Vernon Chalker opened Bar Ampere, adjoining – through a “secret” back door – Gin Palace, his then 14-year-old botanical basement bar. When Chalker diedin 2020, his business partner Ben Luzz took the reins of both venues, and went on to bookend them with a pair of newcomers, Bijou Bottle Store and Black Kite Commune, bringing his Vespertine Group bar stable to four.

Drinking alfresco at Bar Ampere, as is customary, in its concrete tunnel swept with bohemian artworks, there’s usually someone away with the “green fairy” – aka absinthe.

Most are regulars, who order assertively from a lengthy list and know their way around the fountain. But rookies get the full rundown. Want a sweeter start? Try the headlining house absinthe, a citrusy, fennel-forward collab with Melbourne’s Marionette Liqueur. Think bitter is better? One of Bar Ampere’s bestselling absinthes is the French Lemercier Amer.

Whichever you choose comes in a glass topped with a perforated spoon (custom-made in the shape of the bar’s logo) and a sugar cube, which the fountain’s tap drips icy water over to dissolve, transforming your drink from clear to cloudy.

“It’s called louching, it’s opening up the herbal aromas,” our waiter explains. “If it’s still too strong now, keep adding water … And if you don’t ever find that sweet spot, you don’t like absinthe.”

Luckily, this aperitif and cocktail bar has plenty more to offer, especially for night owls.

Not only is Bar Ampere open for drinks until 3am every night of the week (“we never close early”, it promises) – making it a popular hospo hangout for chefs and waiters who have clocked off late – it also serves food until closing time. That means it’s one of few bars in the city that’s open for a reliably good meal – that’s reliably available – after midnight.

There are fat and salty fries. The steak sandwich game is strong: tender, pink-in-the-middle eye fillet with sweet onion jam and gruyere on a soft but crusty roll.

Swankier snacks include a pot of velvety chicken-liver parfait, and quail-egg-topped steak tartare, with all the usual accoutrements lined up next to it, to be mixed in as you please. And if you need a fresh napkin, you might find one in a secret drawer built into your table.

Inset into a backlit wall made of wine bottle bases, the back bar is stocked with several of Bar Ampere’s own concoctions, including two amari – one called Danger, another called Madness – only pouring here. The bar also brews its own zesty, boozier-than-your-average ginger beer.

A few recent visits proved that if we showed a little curiosity, we got the team at their most knowledgeable. But they could do a little more to spruik the gems, some house-made, of what is quite a substantial drinks list, for those who don’t want to self-direct. For those who do, get a thinking drink while you thumb through the pages. May I suggest the sweet and sour Pucker Up! with sloe gin, limoncello and Montenegro.

In many ways, our bar scene is unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. But in others, it’s as if nothing has changed. It’s comforting to know that under this archway, in this quintessentially Melbourne laneway, absinthe still makes the heart grow fonder.

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