There is a moment, familiar to anyone who has spent time in a proper listening bar, when the music stops being background and starts being the point. The conversation dips. Someone at the bar leans forward. A needle finds a groove, and the room quietly reorganises itself around the sound. Australia has discovered that moment in spectacular fashion.
Walk into almost any major capital city on the continent right now and you will find people paying genuine attention to a record being played at volume through a system that costs more than most people’s first car. They are drinking sake from a curated list of sixty-plus varieties. They are eating torched bonito and wagyu tataki. They are arguing, quietly and with great feeling, about whether the pressing matters. Australia, a country not historically associated with quiet contemplation, has taken the listening bar concept and made it entirely its own.
This is not a trend. Trends arrive and depart. What is happening to the vinyl bar scene in Australia feels more structural than that, more like a permanent recalibration of what a night out is supposed to mean. And to understand why, it helps to go back to where the whole thing started.
Related
In Conversation and Mix with Dimitri Andreas
Terminal V has revealed Clydeside Live, a new dedicated open-air event space, as the home of its landmark 10th anniversary festival
The jazz kissaten, or kissa, was born in Japan in the early 1950s, in the difficult years following the Second World War. Records were expensive. Hi-fi equipment was the preserve of the wealthy. So a generation of Japanese music obsessives did what they had always done and found a collective solution. Bar and cafe owners acquired the vinyl and the systems that most of their customers could never afford, and charged a modest entry price for the privilege of sitting in a carefully arranged room and listening properly.
The rules were often strict. No talking when a record was playing. No requests. No phone calls. The kissaten was a sanctuary, a place where the music was not competing with anything else, where the act of listening was itself the evening’s purpose. At their peak in the 1960s and 70s, thousands of these establishments operated across Japan, each with its own curatorial personality, its own peculiar collection, its fiercely devoted regulars.
They never entirely disappeared, and in recent years they have staged a quiet global comeback that has become anything but quiet. The kissaten model, slightly loosened to accommodate the noisier expectations of non-Japanese audiences, has taken root in cities across the world. And the results, in terms of the quality of the spaces it has produced and the communities it has built, have been remarkable.
The kissaten was a sanctuary, a place where the music was not competing with anything else, where the act of listening was itself the evening’s purpose.
London’s Brilliant Corners (which is one of our all-time favourite bars in the world), tucked away in Dalston, was among the first to transplant the concept into the Western bar experience without stripping it of its seriousness. It kept the emphasis on sound quality, invested in the kind of vintage Japanese equipment that audiophiles dream about, and built a drinks programme serious enough to justify the journey on its own terms. It became a blueprint for what followed.
New York, Tokyo, Seoul, Barcelona and San Francisco have all produced their own iterations. The Jaç Hi-Fi Cafe in Barcelona and Side A in San Francisco are among the more recent additions to a global roster that grows longer every few months. Each venue brings its own inflection, shaped by local drinking culture, local food sensibilities and whatever the owner happens to have been obsessing over for the last twenty years. But the underlying proposition is consistent: the record is the thing, the system is chosen to honour it, and everything else, the food, the cocktails, the interior, exists in service of that central fact.
Australia arrived at this conversation later than London or Tokyo but has made up for lost time with energy and an investment that has surprised even its most enthusiastic advocates. Sydney and Melbourne have produced a cluster of listening bars that can genuinely stand alongside the best in the world, while Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth have added their own distinctly regional voices to the conversation. What follows is Decoded’s (semi) definitive guide to the ten best vinyl bars in the country, plus the cities that deserve far more credit than they typically receive.
The Top 10
01. ANTE / NEWTOWN, SYDNEY
If you have spoken to anyone with a serious interest in what is happening to Australian bar culture over the past few years, the conversation will have arrived at Ante eventually. Matt Young’s sake bar and listening room on King Street in Newtown is as close to a perfect realisation of the kissaten ideal as Australia has yet produced. The fit-out is controlled and deliberate: blackbutt timber bar, acoustic panels concealed within walls and ceiling, shelving backlit to display some 2,500 records from Young’s personal collection. Nothing is accidental, and nothing is there for decorative effect.
The music spans jazz, soul, reggae and electronic music, played according to whatever Young and whoever is behind the bar that night happen to be feeling. There is no playlist in any conventional sense. Chef Jemma Whiteman’s seasonal menu moves between modern Australian and Japanese with the same unselfconscious fluency that the music moves between genres. Torched bonito with blood orange and ponzu, beef tartare with crostini and curried egg, pasta with fermented shiitake, all of it designed to complement the sixty-plus varieties of sake rather than compete with them. Ante takes no reservations. Arrive early or accept the consequences.
02. LB’S RECORD BAR / MEYERS PLACE, MELBOURNE
Merivale’s first Melbourne venture arrived in late 2025 with considerable fanfare and has, by all accounts, justified every word of it. Tucked into Meyers Place laneway between Bourke and Little Collins Streets, LB’s was conceived as a kind of portal, the sort of place you stumble into by accident and immediately resolve to return to deliberately. The design, overseen by Merivale’s Nasim Koerting, marries warmth and nostalgia with a precision that keeps it from tipping into sentimentality. Exposed brick, warm timber, the particular kind of amber lighting that makes everyone look like they are in a film they have not seen yet.
The vinyl collection is extensive and eclectic, and the drinks programme is exactly what you would expect from the group that has shaped more of Sydney’s bar culture than any other operator in recent memory. LB’s represents something important: the point at which the listening bar concept attracted the attention of genuinely major hospitality groups, which is both a validation of the format and, for those who prefer their vinyl bars a little less polished, a moment worth noting.
03. REKODO / BARANGAROO, SYDNEY
Chef Matt Moran invested close to one hundred thousand dollars in the audio-visual infrastructure of his Barangaroo listening bar, and the results are audible the moment you walk through the door. The system, anchored by Klipsch La Scala speakers, a McIntosh MC152 amplifier, McIntosh turntables and a full phono preamplifier, fills the room with a clarity that makes other bars’ sound systems feel like they are happening in a different building. Rekodo means ‘record’ in Japanese, and the intent is literal.
The food, steered by head chef Tara Chua, is Japanese-inflected and share-friendly: wagyu tataki, shiitake skewers, whole snapper karaage. The drinks list leans on sake, Japanese whisky and cocktails designed to hold their own against the food rather than merely accompany it. Guest DJ and curator nights have featured Aria-nominated artists alongside international selectors. In a city that now has several serious vinyl bars to choose from, Rekodo distinguishes itself through the uncompromising quality of its technical investment.
04. HER MUSIC ROOM / MELBOURNE CBD
Contained within the larger HER venue, the Music Room is perhaps the most architecturally distinctive listening space in Australia. American walnut panelling, vintage Japanese art deco detailing, seating for thirty-two guests and a sound-locked room designed from the floor up as an acoustic environment rather than retrofitted to function as one. The bespoke sound system is supported by a collection of over three thousand records, and DJs and curators play the room every night of the week.
The drinks list at HER runs to wine, sparkling, signature cocktails and an irreverent selection that manages to feel celebratory without being frivolous. It is a room that rewards patience and punishes distraction. Arrive knowing you are there to listen.
05. JAM BAR / IVY PRECINCT, SYDNEY
The numbers at Jam Bar are genuinely staggering. Fifteen thousand records. That is not a collection so much as a library, and Merivale’s pink-toned record bar within the Ivy precinct on George Street takes the scale of it seriously. Head Chef Michael Fox and cocktail lead James Irvine have built a Japanese-inspired food and drinks programme around sandos, skewers, highballs and sake that is designed to sustain a long evening of listening rather than simply accompany it.
The bar opens seven days a week and converts to a late-night operation from Thursday to Sunday, records playing until 2am. The sheer volume of the collection means that no two visits sound alike, which is the point. Cocktails run to $24, snacks from $10 to $22. For a venue of this scale and commercial ambition, it wears its musical seriousness with genuine conviction.
06. DEADWAX / ENMORE ROAD, SYDNEY
The best thing about Deadwax, which took over the former Enmore Country Club space in 2025, is that it does not take the listening bar concept too seriously. Where some of the venues on this list treat the vinyl record with something approaching reverence, Deadwax operates from a more democratic position: that music is supposed to be fun, that dancing matters, and that there is nothing wrong with someone requesting Fleetwood Mac at eleven o’clock on a Friday night.
The acoustic ceiling and the psychedelic bar sit alongside a long banquette and a dancefloor that actually gets used. On weekdays, guests can request records from the team’s collection directly. Weekends bring DJs who range across 90s and 00s classics, folk, country, contemporary pop and everything in between. The Moonlight Peel cocktail, featuring espresso and a banana lolly finish, is a nostalgic and well-constructed drink.
07. BUSBY’S / PADDINGTON, SYDNEY
Busby’s sits beneath the boutique Oxford House hotel in Paddington and takes its name from Busby’s Bore, which runs directly beneath the site. The interior draws on European listening bar precedents, specifically Bambino in Paris and Bar Sway in Berlin, with claret and merlot tones on the walls and portraits of John and James Busby presiding over the room with appropriate authority.
The wine list was curated by P&V Wine co-founder Mike Bennie and ranges from classically styled to more expressive and wilder-edged producers. The cocktail programme, courtesy of Maybe Sammy’s Paolo Maffietti, follows a stirred-only policy: no shakers, on the grounds that the noise would compromise the listening experience. Chef Clayton Wells designed the food to complement the sounds directly, an approach that sounds precious but in practice produces menus of considerable intelligence. Bring Your Own Record nights have become something of an institution. The music moves between soul, disco and hip hop, and the room moves with it.
08. WAXFLOWER / BRUNSWICK, MELBOURNE
Waxflower is where Melbourne’s listening bar scene reportedly began in 2021, and it established a slightly different blueprint from the strictly Japanese-influenced venues that followed. The music is central but the conversation is valued. The food and drinks, inflected by European and Peruvian influences, are taken seriously in their own right. The speakers, custom built by Pitt and Giblin in Hobart, sit atop a wall of records behind the bar and produce a sound that is warm, detailed and genuinely thrilling at volume.
The relaxed tone has always been Waxflower’s competitive advantage. It does not ask very much of you beyond your attention and your willingness to be surprised. Four years in, it remains the kind of bar that feels like it has always been there, which is a harder thing to achieve than it sounds.
09. BAR SELECTA / HAWTHORN, MELBOURNE
The newest entry on this list opened in July 2025 in a Hawthorn laneway, and arrived carrying the full weight of expectation that a Tokyo-style listening bar opening in a Melbourne suburb tends to generate. It has met that expectation with considerable grace. Ten seats at the bar, a listening lounge for twenty to twenty-five people, and a drinks programme built around Japanese ingredients and executed with the kind of precision that comes from people who have thought about nothing else for a long time.
Bar director Joey’s Fukkatsu Gibson, a reinvention of the classic Gibson featuring Suntory Roku gin and matcha butter-washed vermouth, topped with cherry blossom-pickled onion and yomogi yuzu oil, is the sort of cocktail that makes you reconsider what a cocktail is supposed to do. Kyoto-born Masa curates the sake list. Adam, formerly of Golden Monkey, brings two decades of operational experience and a love for vinyl that is evident in every selection.
10. HIVE BAR / ST PETERS, SYDNEY
Hive Bar opened in 2009, which makes it Sydney’s original vinyl bar by a considerable distance, and it has spent the intervening sixteen years quietly doing everything that the newer arrivals have been celebrated for. The walls are covered from floor to ceiling in gig posters, murals by Sydney artists and local notices. The community is built around Bring Your Own Record nights, the DJ collective Queen Bee, and the presence of regulars who have been coming since before the concept had a name.
The craft beer programme is serious, with St Peters Brewery just down the road and a rotating cast of Australian producers keeping the taps interesting. Pocket-friendly deals run from Tuesday to Sunday. Hive is not trying to be anything other than what it has always been, which is the neighbourhood’s front room for people who believe that music is worth sitting still for.
Australia, a country not historically associated with quiet contemplation, has taken the listening bar concept and made it entirely its own. But how could we not put in some notable mentions (and recommended by some local DJs)
HONEYDRIPPER / ADELAIDE
Adelaide’s contribution to the listening bar conversation is Honeydripper, which opened on Frome Street in 2025 and immediately established itself as one of the most distinctive venues of its kind in the country. The two-level, 200-capacity space was designed by Claire Markwick-Smith, the architect behind Africola Canteen and Loc, and shoots for a Laurel Canyon counterculture vibe that is both more specific and more interesting than the Japanese-influenced template that most other venues follow.
The vinyl library runs to more than 3,000 records, curated by Chicago DJ Gene Farris. The system, assembled by Lenin Paunovic who also kitted out Sugar and Longplay Bistro, features Klipsch La Scala speakers driven by a McIntosh MC312 amplifier and represents a technical investment of serious intent. The cocktail programme is the most distinctive element: each drink arrives with a song pairing from the Honeydripper team. The passionfruit, tonka and banana fizz is paired with Dusty Springfield’s Spooky. The Guinness-based Shibata, a dark and moody construction of coffee, forest fruits and cream, is matched with Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain. It is an inspired conceit, executed with considerable care.
During the day, Honeydripper operates as a cafe, with the team from Carton Deli serving coffee and sandwiches in custom retro crockery. The booths have USB and power points. It is one of the few listening bars in Australia that genuinely serves the full arc of a day, rather than simply the evening portion of it.
RUBY, MY DEAR / NEWSTEAD, BRISBANE
Brisbane was the last of the major Australian cities to get a proper listening bar, and Ruby, My Dear, which opened in Newstead in April 2023, made the wait worthwhile. Founded by Bonnie Shearston and Tom Sanceau, the duo behind burger bar Red Hook, the venue houses four hand-built bronze Pitt and Giblin speakers that create a rich, detailed sound without overwhelming conversation.
DJs play four nights a week, from Thursday to Sunday, with guest selectors appearing on Fridays and Saturdays. On the remaining evenings, bar staff handle the record selection themselves, which tends to produce the most interesting listening of the week. The first Tuesday of every month brings a live jazz band. The drinks list has a clear Japanese inflection: the Yardbird, built from Roku gin with lychee, peach and lemon, is the signature; a Toki Whisky Highball and a sake Negroni sit alongside it with equal confidence. The izakaya-style food menu is designed to share and to sustain, with Japanese and local beers and an intelligent wine selection completing the picture. Ruby, My Dear has done more for Brisbane’s reputation as a serious drinking city than almost anything that came before it.
ASTRAL WEEKS / NORTHBRIDGE, PERTH
Astral Weeks opened in Perth’s Chinatown in April 2022, in a former Chinese medicine store in Northbridge’s laneway precinct, and it carries its origins in its DNA. Named after the Van Morrison album, it was founded by Sean O’Neill, who spent years visiting listening bars in Japan and in London, specifically Brilliant Corners, before deciding that Perth deserved its own version. The result is one of the most genuinely serious listening bar operations in the country.
The fit-out is acoustically treated throughout: wall panels, insulated ceiling, carpeted floors, all working in service of the hand-built Line Magnetic hi-fi system that sits mounted with pride of place behind the bar. Black bentwood chairs and tables, strategically positioned downlights, custom shelving built to showcase both the record collection and the sound system. There is no signage outside. The bar shares a laneway with late-night stalwart Billy Lee’s.
The record collection was compiled from the personal selections of all four co-owners, and bar manager James Enderby and bartender Warwick Montgomery run their own record label, Ono Records, which gives you some sense of the depth of musical commitment in the room. The drinks list focuses on high-quality Australian and international wines, sake, and classic spirits. In 2024, the team extended the operation with Ah Um, an intimate 25-seater dining room accessible through Astral Weeks itself, running on the same ethos: good food needs good sound. It is a small but expanding universe, and it represents some of the best of what the listening bar concept can be when the people involved care about all of it equally.
ODE TO SIRENS / FREMANTLE, PERTH
While Astral Weeks holds Northbridge’s listening bar territory, the front bar of Fremantle’s former P&H Hotel has been transformed into Ode to Sirens, a 1970s-infused vinyl bar that brings a distinctly different energy to the city’s western edge. The aesthetic leans heavily on that decade: warm tones, unhurried attitude, and a music policy built around the records that defined the era. Greek food is on hand, cocktails are considered, and the Freo location gives it a relaxed seaside quality that the more metropolitan venues cannot quite replicate. It is a reminder that the listening bar is not a single thing but a format that adapts to the character of the place it inhabits.
The vinyl bar’s global rise is sometimes described as nostalgia, and there is an element of that at work. The return of the physical record, the retreat from streaming’s endless frictionless abundance, the desire for an evening structured around something other than shouting in a mates ear at a nightclub: all of this speaks to a generation processing its relationship with the digital world by periodically opting out of it. Or, if you are just like me, getting a little older, LOVE music, enjoy a night out, but CBF going clubbing all night.
Australia has taken to this proposition with a speed and a seriousness that few would have predicted five years ago. Sydney’s bar scene has produced five world-class listening venues in the space of a few years. Melbourne has matched it. Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth have stopped waiting for permission and built their own.
Discover more from Decoded Magazine
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
