Restaurateur Con Christopoulos to open Angel Music Bar in Bourke Street

Restaurateur Con Christopoulos continues his annexation of Bourke Street with the imminent opening of Angel Music Bar, next to Butcher's Diner.

Already occupying a significant slab of Spring Street – where he operates the European, City Wine Shop, The Melbourne Supper Club, Spring Street Grocer and Siglo – Christopoulos last year opened Butcher's Diner, a 24-hour temple of tinnies and burgers at 10 Bourke Street.

By mid-December, he'll swing open the doors at No. 12, revealing an all-night music bar downstairs and The Dance Room, a pocket-sized dance club and events space, upstairs. It will be licensed for 125 people.

Cabinetmakers are busily refitting the former Korova Milk Bar, adding French oak floors, green-painted timber panelling and a curved American walnut bar lined with black leather stools, in time for a function booked for December 15.

As with all projects conceived by the would-be architect ("I didn't get the marks," Christopoulos says ruefully), quirky design details abound.

A painting beside the bar will conceal a hatch that, when a light flashes, can be lifted to receive trays of food prepared in the Butcher's Diner kitchen next door. Angel Music Bar's "room service" menu will be a short, pithy list of dishes such as prawn sandwiches and a hot dish of the day.

Out the back will be a small courtyard, with a secret gate opening off the rear laneway so guests can head directly upstairs for dance nights, live jazz events and film screenings.

Angel Music Bar and The Dance Room will open until 3am Monday to Wednesday and around the clock Thursday to Sunday.

12 Bourke Street, Melbourne