When the Everleigh closed, a very different cocktail bar moved in. How does it rate?

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The tabletop your elbows are resting on is custom-made, comprised of thousands of tiny mahjong tiles lined up and inset into the high top below a pane of glass. The piercingly icy Gibson you’re sipping in a perfectly sized half-pour is supercharged with baijiu, the high-proof Chinese spirit, and MSG “brine” (more on that later). And what are you eating? It could be as simple as prawn crackers from a brown paper bag, or as substantial as a dozen of the day’s hand-folded dumplings.

Welcome to Moondrop, a new cocktail bar whose championing of Chinese culture sets it apart, and whose owner, Steve Chan, says he’s “fighting sameness” in Melbourne’s bar scene.

Chan – also behind Sleepy’s cafe and wine bar in Carlton North – had big ambitions for weaving his Chinese heritage into a cocktail context. “We want to be the best bar in Australia,” he told Good Food ahead of Moondrop’s opening.

But he also had big shoes to fill, inheriting a spot that’s long been at the centre of Melbourne’s cocktail universe.

Upstairs on Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, Moondrop is a worthy new identity for the site formerly known as The Everleigh. It’s where Michael and Zara Madrusan built one of Melbourne’s defining cocktail bars, before its untimely closure in 2025, after 14 years.

Structurally, the space has a similar flow, from the main bar, to the downstairs lounge, to the 12-person “burrow” behind velvet curtains. But this is not Everleigh 2.0. You’re now cocooned in crimson red, orbiting an oversized moon-shaped pendant light and surrounded by cabinets of fine china, as Chinese rap blares over the speakers.

1920s Shanghai was a reference point for the refit, channelling all its old-world glamour, but as you unfold the embossed, leather-bound menu, it feels very 2020s Melbourne.

Courtesy of co-owner Jesse Kourmouzis, Above Board’s former bar manager, many of the cocktails are left-field concoctions with lesser-seen Chinese spirits and ingredients. That aforementioned Gibson is, as our bartender says, “for salty babies, just like me”, with a savouriness deepened by MSG and offset by a pickled onion.

Different flavour profiles – sweet, sour, bitter, savoury, dry – correspond to different symbols on the list, to help you navigate the two-dozen-or-so cocktails. Or you can collaborate with the cheeky, charismatic staff, each of whom has glimmers of the unadulterated enthusiasm for hospitality that Chan has become known for at Sleepy’s.

They might suggest The Five-Spice Girls, where five-spiced rum, umeshu (plum liqueur), pineapple and lime blend so mind-bendingly well that they each ping around your palate like a game of pinball. Or another that reads quite adult, with its rye and bourbon, but reveals itself as a liquified, levelled-up banana Paddle Pop: incredibly smooth, not as boozy as it looks, with a miso-caramel sweetness and a nostalgic banana lolly garnish.

Some oddball drinks stick the landing less, including one topped with a foam of Krating Daeng, or Thai Red Bull, that really just smells (and tastes) of teen spirit-drinking.

Notably, the one-page beer and wine offering is almost entirely sourced from China, including Tsingtao longnecks. And to eat, you might find a version of the Sandwich Watch-approved Chinese bolognese toastie from Sleepy’s or a crisp-shelled, rosette-shaped tartlet piped with soft cheddar custard, plus osmanthus-laced quince paste dotted on top.

This is the kind of cocktail bar that was swarmed with lion dancers to ring in Chinese New Year, that has just launched monthly mahjong nights in its back room, that cold-infuses lapsang souchong (smoky Chinese black tea) into sweet vermouth for your Manhattan.

Instead of asking if it fills the void left by the Everleigh, consider this: it goes one better, celebrating Chinese traditions – and making its own – in a way few cocktail bars do, balancing attention to detail with tongue in cheek to show you a damn good time.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.