Ganley Group's first dedicated event space, The Carriage Bar and Beer Garden, opens at The Fifth Province on 15 September.
The Fifth Province is getting bigger, with Ganley Group opening The Carriage Bar and Beer Garden on 15 September.
The Carriage Bar and Beer Garden is the group’s first dedicated event space, extending the St Kilda pub across three connected areas. Ganley Group also runs Freddie Wimpoles, Angus & Bon, The Bay Hotel, Windsor Castle Hotel and the Carlton Club.
The Carriage Bar and Beer Garden
- What: The Carriage Bar and Beer Garden
- Where: The Fifth Province, 3/60 Fitzroy St, St Kilda
- Opens: 15 September
- Capacity: up to 120 across the three areas
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
View this post on Instagram
Each room has its own job. The Carriage Bar is the indoor dining room, The Verandah is a light-filled outdoor terrace, and the Beer Garden goes all in on live sport with a 150-inch screen. The whole lot sits inside the St Kilda Railway Station, built in 1857 and reckoned to be Victoria’s oldest surviving railway station building.
Studio Y handled the design, carrying the building’s past into the new fit-out with the feel of a traditional Irish pub. Expect solid American oak panelling, brass fixtures and textured walls by local makers Scanlan & Makers, with tessellated tile flooring running out to the outdoor sections.
A run of hand-painted gilded mirrors by Sydney artist Bodie Jarman, of El Oso Negro, is the standout, throwing light around the room and picking up the warm tones in the oak. Vintage Irish memorabilia, including old Guinness and whiskey pieces, fills in the rest of the story.
On the food side, executive chef Jeremy Sutphin has built menus that run from canapés and cocktails to sit-down meals, with mini beef and Guinness pies, Victorian grass-fed beef sirloin and hot sticky date pudding with honeycomb among them. An Irish whiskey flight pours Redbreast 12 Year Old, Bushmills 16 Year Old and Green Spot.
Founder and chief publican Liam Ganley grew up in Ireland, where pubs tend to work as community anchors, and that thinking runs through the extension. It’s also set up to shift with the seasons, cosy in winter and opening onto the old station verandah once the weather turns. Like the rest of the group’s venues, it borrows from the Irish saying céad míle fáilte, meaning a hundred thousand welcomes.
For more information, head here.
