Pearl Diver is Melbourne's new bar for cocktails and oysters

It's a truth universally acknowledged that oysters and cocktails taste better outside the home, but if you want to put the theory to the test, new CBD bar Pearl Diver is at your service. It specialises in the pick of Australia's rocks and pacifics served dressed, natural or cooked, backed by drinks with subtle nods to Tiki recipes.

The 100-person bar on theformer Annam site is a joint effort by The Speakeasy Group (Eau de Vie, Mjolner, Nick & Nora's), Alex Boon and Pez Collier, who participated in Speakeasy's mentoring program for staff members before putting forward their concept and business case.

It's Boon and Collier's first time as owners, but the pair have accrued a combined 28 years behind the stick at Brisbane venues including The Apo and Lychee Lounge for Collier, and The Bowery and Seymour's Cocktails and Oysters for Boon.

"We took a lot of inspiration from that space but wanted to take a very different approach," says Collier. "We're doing more tropical cocktails… and the venue itself is a lot lighter."

Oysters from four different regions are pulled from a long glass cabinet sitting on top of the bar, served with dressings like lemon granita or the house martini, which brings together the classic pairing in a single mouthful in The Drunken Oyster. Oysters rockefeller and kilpatrick are also on offer.

Despite the bar's name referring to a Tiki drink, the mood is more maritime than Pacific resort, with timber joinery, white cafe curtains and a blue and grey palette.

Cocktails range from briny and boozy to loosely tropical, always using fresh ingredients that are in season rather than syrups or extracts. The focus, says Boon, is on improving the individual elements that go into each drink. "A lot of these Tiki drinks are from the 1950s when there were less techniques in bartending."

The bar's namesake cocktail is an ode to Tiki creator Donn Beach with a few updates, while Strawberry & Cream ditches sugar in favour of fermented strawberry, strawberry tea, fino sherry and bubbles.

The food nods to the French Quarter of New Orleans, with salt cod beignets, steak tartare and potato gauffretes with Comte mingling with other items such as wagyu Philly cheesesteak, coal-fired octopus and mussels with XO on the 15-item carte.

Open Tues-Thurs 5pm-midnight, Fri-Sat 3pm-midnight

56 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, 03 8393 9367, pearldiver.com.au