Ember Lounge

I know Ember Lounge is probably named so because of it’s dim exterior and putative ‘romantic’ feel in the broody light. But if you ask me I tend to think of it being named after the fact that this bar has the potential to be a bright flame but in reality is a little piece of hot charcoal that could just as easily be snuffed out with a sneeze.
So what is keeping the Ember alight? Well it is their fantastic meal deals most nights of the week. On Mondays they have $ 10 pot & parma, Tues and Thurs $ 10 pot & pizzas (which are really quite delicious) and Weds $ 15 pot & porterhouse steak meal. They also have some live jazz music some nights.
Fantastic meal deals aside (which I really can’t recommend enough) there is nothing inherently wrong with the Ember Lounge. It is just that it has that underlying feeling of trying too hard to be something it isn’t. Also the fact it is a really long thin room makes it a little bit of an awkward space.

If you like pizza, and you like wine and you want to enjoy both for the paltry sum of $ 10 on a Tuesday or Thursday to the sometime soundscape of esoteric jazz, you’ll love Ember Lounge. A tiny hole in the wall bar in the Westgarth Shops stretch of High Street, Ember Lounge would be fairly underwhelming were it not for its brilliant nightly deals.
From chicken parma with either a pot of beer or a glass of wine for $ 10 on a Monday to a whole pizza — A WHOLE PIZZA — with a pot on Tuesdays and Thursdays for $ 10 toto, Ember Lounge’s nightly deals from 6 — 9pm really are a bit of a steal.
Presumably owing to its frankly kind of generic atmosphere, Ember Lounge’s clientele is hard to pin down; running the frankly schizo gauntlet from wannabe Nick Cave Melbourne hipsters to nice, young, assembly line couples.
And yes, there is the occasional jazz act on offer. When I visited last week said jazz outfit thoughtfully interpreted The Sound of Music’s ‘These are a few of my favourite things’ while I scoffed pizza and guzzled wine. Sod ‘Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens’, Ember Lounge’s pizzas certainly number among my favourite Melbourne things.