The Great Eastern Food Bar sits on the rooftop of the Bamboo Lifestyle Centre on Rustenburg Road in Melville, a minimalist room that opens onto a terrace with a long view over the Johannesburg koppies. It has been a Melville fixture since 2014, when the blog 2Summers first flagged it as a quiet surprise above a suburban shopping center.
Who would love it: a drinker who treats the kitchen as the main act and the glass as the partner to it. Who would not: anyone after a deep brown-spirits library, because this is a wine, sake and cocktail room built around Asian small plates, not a whisky den.
The setting earns the climb. You reach it through the Bamboo Centre and up to a stripped-back space where the terrace tables do the heavy lifting, especially at sunset when the light drops behind Melville Koppies. The local guide joburg.co.za calls it a hidden gem, and the word fits a place most drivers on 7th Street never know is overhead.
The food is the reason the room stays full. The kitchen runs an experimental pan-Asian menu that has shifted over the years from a ramen focus to a wider dim sum and small-plate list. Regular orders cited across EatOut and Tripadvisor reviews include the vegetable dumplings with preserved lemon, the kimchi dumplings, the steamed buns and a sweetcorn ramen built on a house-made miso. The edamame and seaweed crisps are the standing table-openers.
Marcus Webb's read for drinkers: come for the pairing, not the pour count. The list leans into sake, Asian-accented cocktails and a short wine selection chosen to sit alongside chili, ginger and fermentation rather than fight them. EatOut's review noted the drinks read strange on paper and land well in the glass, which is the right ambition for a kitchen this playful. A clean junmai or a citrus-forward highball does more for a plate of kimchi dumplings than any barrel-aged cocktail would.
The value holds. Small plates run in the moderate range that keeps a full table honest, and the build of an evening here is several dishes shared across two or three rounds rather than one heavy main. That structure rewards a slow drinks pace, which suits the terrace and the view.
The crowd is Melville in miniature. Early evenings pull a neighbourhood and university crowd up from the 7th Street strip below; later, the terrace fills with groups who came for the food and stayed for the light. It runs calmer and more considered than the bars at street level, which is part of the appeal.
What regulars flag, across EatOut and Tripadvisor, is consistent. The dumplings and the rotating specials draw the praise, the view earns its own mentions, and the recurring caution is the booking side: at least one reviewer lost a Friday reservation in the early days, so a confirmed table on a weekend night is the safe play. Hours skew toward dinner service, so treat it as an evening destination rather than a lunch stop.
Best time to go: a midweek evening with a terrace table booked ahead, dishes ordered to share, and a sake or highball to carry the meal. It reads as one of Melville's most rewarding rooftop rooms on the strength of the kitchen and the climb, not the decor. See where it sits among the best rooftop bars in Johannesburg, and read our wider guide to the best bars in Johannesburg for the full picture.
Pair this bar with
For a Melville sibling a short walk downhill, compare Lucky Bean Johannesburg, the 7th Street kitchen-and-bar that anchors the strip. For craft beer with the same considered streak, try And Union Craft Beer Johannesburg. And for a late jazz and cocktail finish across town, Marabi Club Johannesburg makes the natural second stop.
Sources
EatOut: The Great Eastern Food Bar · Joburg.co.za: A Hidden Gem in Melville · 2Summers: Melville Snapshot (2014) · Tripadvisor (accessed 2026-06)
Reviewed by Marcus Webb, barsforKings. Published Mar 11, 2026.
