Weekly updates:

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Weekly updates


Don’t worry, Melbourne. There’s always next year. For the second year in a row, Perth has been home to Australia’s “best small bar” in the annual Bar Awards, voted by industry professionals. The Mechanics Institute took out the award this year – their menu focussing heavily on cocktails and burgers, and even a combination of the two, as their “Epic Bloody Mary” is garnished with a cheeseburger amongst other things.

Surprisingly enough, Melbourne didn’t take out very many awards at all this year. Four out of a possible 22 awards were handed out to Melbourne bars with the famous The Black Pearl (or as I remember it to be that one place I spent almost $30 on a pot and a mojito fml) taking home half of them. New Bar of the Year went to Boilermaker House, while Best Nightclub of the Year went to The Emerson. Rookie of the Year (Will Sleeman) and Best Bartenders Bar both went to The Black Pearl.

So, Melbourne was out-Melbourned by a Perth bar. Perth is the new Melbourne. Hell, even Adelaide ranked on the Top 10 cities to visit by Lonely Planet. This was inevitable though. Melbourne’s popularity is based on pretentious stuff that we liked before it became cool, and now that they’re fundamentally cool everywhere else, we’ve essentially been self-destructed by our own success. But can we rise from the ashes like the quinoa-eating, dumpster diving, grandpa-chic Phoenixes we are? Time to re-strategise. Time to pretend that blow didn’t hurt. Time to start drinking our green smoothies out of something other than mason jars. Time to start placing our bars in even harder-to-reach locations. Time to lose even more awards to prove just how ahead-of-cool we are.

Or maybe it’s time to admit defeat, pack up and move on over to Perth (when they win most liveable city, maybe).

More Melbourne

Can Melbourne handle having another toast cafe?
Melbourne is getting a ‘Nutella pop-up store’ because we need all Nutella everything
Melbourne announced ‘Most Liveable City’ …again