Best Rooftop Bars on Swan Street

Let’s be straight with you. Swan Street is a great place to eat and drink, and it leans more to pubs and bistros than rooftops. But if you want a proper roof, a cold drink and Richmond spread out below you, there are more than you’d think: four venues with a real rooftop, plus a couple of open-air spots that get you most of the way there without the stairs.

Here they are, in the order we’d actually send a mate.

Hecho en Mexico

Hecho en Mexico took over the old Feast of Merit corner at 115-117 Swan St and, wisely, kept the roof. Upstairs is the reason you come: margaritas and sangria poured out over the Swan Street rooftops, from a venue happy to call itself the coolest rooftop bar around. Downstairs is street-style Mexican from one of the biggest Mexican restaurant groups in the country. The salsas, guac and marinades are made in house every day, the vegan menu is a real menu rather than a token taco, and the happy hour and bottomless brunch keep the upstairs busy. If you only do one rooftop on the street, do this one.

Pizzeria Da Bruno

Da Bruno is the big swing. Five levels and 250 seats at 221 Swan St, and yes, two rooftops, sitting on top of a New York-style basement bar, a bistro and a mezzanine. The old flooring building was pulled apart and rebuilt over four years, with a ceiling pushing ten metres and a wood-fired oven shipped in from Italy. The look is heavy northern Italian, all poured concrete and brutalist edges, named after a 1930s restaurant near Milan’s Duomo. Come for a pizza and a drink, then go find a roof. With two of them, you get options depending on the weather and the crowd.

Fargo & Co

Fargo & Co sits in the old 1907 State Bank building at 214-216 Swan St, all red brick, stained glass and Art Deco grandeur. Head up the brass-railed staircase and you hit a second-level bar and a big rooftop terrace, which is exactly where you want to be with a cocktail on a warm afternoon. Downstairs keeps the heritage bones; upstairs is the payoff. As their own A-frame out the front puts it, it’s time for a session on the terrace.

The Richmond Club Hotel

The Richmond Club Hotel has held down the corner at 100 Swan St since the 1800s, and behind the white heritage facade it stacks up over three levels: a traditional public bar, a dining room and beer garden, a first-floor bar and balcony, and a rooftop with its own bar and a view across Melbourne. Retractable awnings and gas heaters mean it works whatever the weather, and it’s an easy one to land, right in the thick of the strip and a short stumble from a game at the Corner.

A Couple That Aren’t Quite Rooftops

If the roofs are booked out, or you just want to drink under the sky without climbing anything, two more are worth knowing.

Pink Lemonade

Right by Richmond station at 23 Swan St, Pink Lemonade is a former car park that the lockdowns turned into one of the only dedicated outdoor bars at that end of the strip. Astroturf, murals, fairy-lit palms, American BBQ from Hells Bellz and rotating food trucks on the weekend. It’s ground level, not a roof, but it has full beer garden energy and it’s open to the sky.

Hochi Mama

Hochi Mama at 63-65 Swan St is a Vietnamese fusion warehouse with an open-air greenhouse dining room buried in plants. It’s not a rooftop and it’s not a bar first, but the greenhouse is an easy place to sit with a drink and a plate of fried chicken bao before a gig at the Corner. Worth it for the room alone.

The Short Version

Four real rooftops. Hecho en Mexico for the view and the margaritas, Da Bruno for the scale and the pizza, Fargo & Co for the heritage terrace, and the Richmond Club for a proper pub rooftop. Two open-air backups for when you want sky without stairs. For everything else on the strip, the full bars and pubs list is here.