Forget the sprawling Melbourne pub. The Flying Fox is taking a more intimate approach to the neighbourhood local, with a British pub ethos.
The latest opening from the team behind St Kilda’s The Lion & Wombat has landed on Bridge Road, adding a distinctly British-style pub to one of Melbourne’s most pub-heavy suburbs.
Owners Alex Back and Sophie Machin have kept things compact.
Housed in a modest 1860s building, The Flying Fox features a casual front bar for walk-ins and a bookings-only upstairs dining room. The venue seats just over 100 people, with another 15 to 20 seats outside.
The concept draws on the traditional British local, with a focus on familiarity and the sense of community that comes with a smaller neighbourhood pub.
The heritage interior has been transformed with timber panelling, leather banquettes, warmer lighting and a custom timber bar built by a local carpenter.
The food takes its cues from Britain, with French and Spanish influences. Executive chef Nathan Babos, who also leads the kitchen at The Lion & Wombat, has created a menu that puts a modern spin on pub staples.
Highlights include a Scotch egg wrapped in smoked ham hock, Cumberland sausage with sour-cherry ketchup, and a Welsh rarebit doughnut filled with molten cheese and caramelised onion.
The Flying Fox also offers a rotating monthly pie. Tuesdays bring a $28 steak night, while Sundays are dedicated to roasts.
Beer is central to the venue, with two-thirds of its twelve taps dedicated to independent breweries. A traditional cask hand pump is also being installed, allowing local breweries to serve British-style ales at cellar temperature.
That combination of British pub culture, locally brewed beer and cask ale echoes the approach taken by Sydney’s Duke of Clarence.
Opened as a deliberately old-school British boozer, the Duke built its identity around the familiarity and nostalgia of the traditional pub, combining British food with a strong drinks offering and an emphasis on real hand-pumped cask-conditioned ales.
The similarities extend beyond the beer. Both venues are bringing a distinctly British pub experience into an Australian market, while adapting it to local drinkers. The Duke of Clarence sourced cask ales where possible from Australian breweries, helping introduce the centuries-old British style to a new audience. Its cask program also attracted a mix of British expats and curious Australian drinkers, demonstrating that there is an appetite for something beyond the standard cold beer pour.
The Flying Fox is following a similar path in Melbourne, using independent Australian breweries and a traditional hand pump to recreate one of the defining rituals of the British pub.
For both venues, the focus is on bringing the character, rituals and sense of community of the traditional British local into an Australian setting, while giving it a distinctly local identity.
It’s a reminder that sometimes the best pubs are the ones that keep things small, welcoming and easy to settle into.
