Mitre Tavern, Melbourne

Mitre Tavern

5-9 Bank Place, Melbourne VIC 3000

Grade A · DocumentedTrading · checked Sept 2026

Mitre Tavern claims 1868. The records say 1868.

Claimed

1868

First record

1868

Building

no single date

The building. Two-storey cement-rendered brick on a bluestone base, which the Victorian Heritage Register says probably dates back to before 1850; given its faintly medieval look in the early 20th century with window shutters, Marseille terracotta tiles and half-timbered gable ends, and a brick building added on the western side — we give it no single date because late 1830s or early 1840s; 1837 is claimed.

Beer garden

Food

Laneway

The claim

Down a narrow laneway off Collins Street, the Mitre occupies what the city counts as one of Melbourne's oldest buildings, a colonial house turned tavern in 1868. Low doorways, a Queen Anne remodel and a leafy beer garden give it an English feel. Early-twentieth-century artists made it a bohemian haunt, and upstairs there's a steakhouse.

What the records show

The Victorian Heritage Register says the building probably dates back to before 1850 but was not established as the Mitre Tavern until 1867, when the first publican was Henry Thompson; the trade press has a publican's licence granted on 3 April 1868 for an existing house in Bank Place, so the two accounts differ by a year and the page carries both. Rate books of the 1870s give the house fourteen to sixteen rooms, eighteen by 1895. The popular 1837 is the year Charles Ebden bought the land, not a date for the building. Much of what a drinker sees is later: the faintly medieval exterior with its shutters, Marseille tiles and half-timbered gables is early twentieth century, internal changes followed the Licensing Act — the 1889 Act required a separate entrance for off-premises trade, six rooms for public accommodation and a meal room — and in 1971 most of the interior was taken out and replaced. In the early twentieth century the tavern was the favourite meeting place of the T Square Club, an informal group of architects and artists.

Dated evidence for Mitre Tavern, earliest first
Year	What	Source
1868	Claimed founding	The pub
1868	First record of a drinking house here	Victorian Heritage Database

What to look for inside

Licensed 3 April 1868
Bohemian haunt of early 20th-century artists beside the Savage Club
Saved from demolition in 1937
Claims the CBD's largest beer garden

Visiting

Mitre Tavern is in Melbourne, Australia, at 5-9 Bank Place, Melbourne VIC 3000. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

mitretavern.com.au Directions in your maps app