Parker McKenzie

You'd never find Backroom if you didn't know where to look first. There's no signage outside the Ovolo Hotel in South Yarra letting people know it is inside. After entering through the entrance on Toorak Road, walking down the hallway alongside the bustling Lona Misa restaurant, past the reception featuring an open fireplace and pop art paintings of David Bowie before finally down a staircase, you'll find a portrait of a woman holding her finger to her lips shushing. When the portrait – or 'the secret door' as the staff call it – is approached, it slides open and reveals an underground, single-room cocktail bar. With a more subdued style than the eclectic and retro style of the hotel above it, the lightly furnished, speakeasy-style bar certainly has charm. Time Out visits when Backroom has only been open a few weeks, and we get the sense Backroom is still finding an identity. One corner is dedicated to intimate booths, while tables line a wall with the centre of the room taken up with comfy-looking couches. Old school speakers playing jazzy music hang above an impressively backlit bar lined with bottles of botanical spirits and vermouth. Backroom's concept is to offer the limelight to a specific drink, region or brand through both food and drink. When we visit, it's in the throes of an 'All-Australian Takeover', consisting of a special menu of six cocktails and four highballs mixed with the Australian-made Feels Botanical spirits, Regal Rogue vermouth, and flavoured Capi s