Nothing could be more ordered than a map of downtown Melbourne, a classic grid superimposed on a relatively flat topography. I move along its chessboard, its matrix, across horizontal Bourke Street, up vertical Swanston Street and across horizontal Little Bourke Street.
　　Logical, sensible, predictable Melbourne.

　　But down the alleys that run off lanes that run off the "Little" streets that are named after big streets, another Melbourne exists. It's an intoxicating maze that by degrees takes you away from the planned toward the spontaneous, to find the scale of life that is human, intimate.
　　This is the dynamic of Melbourne, a tug of war between order and chaos, respectability and creativity. In its lanes one discovers that the ordered and sensible are only a front, disguising the labyrinthine recesses of the city's bars and clubs.
　　On Corrs Lane, which runs up from Little Bourke between Russell and Exhibition Streets, a flock of young people gather on the cobblestone. Here in the middle of Melbourne's Chinatown, two art gallery/bars are competing for the favor of this lightly alternative crowd.
　　FAD Gallery Bar presents regular exhibitions, comedy nights and folk rock bands, while Eurotrash is a dizzying pastiche of styles and themes, each with a demarcated sitting area or lounge -- from a kitsch psychedelic pop-art corner to a French-style bistro area to a mezzanine Harem Lounge with a chandelier and plush red velvet sofa overlooking the bar and dance floor below. There's even a Red Light District, a curtained alcove for two that Eurotrash boasts is the "closest you'll get to Amsterdam in Melbourne."　　

　　Click the map to see some of the city's best bars and clubs, from mainstream to Maoist
　　Down Liverpool Street, which also runs, lane-like, off Little Bourke, the hole-in-the-wall bar called Double Happiness addresses itself directly to its Chinatown surrounds, with Cultural Revolution kitsch as its decorating theme. Thankfully, it's not overdone -- though I always marvel how Red Guards on the rampage for Mao became fodder for transplanted nostalgia. But that's a topic for another night. For now, it's enough to sip my Dictatorship of the Proletariat cocktail, which tastes for all the world like a Bloody Mary (hey, were they invented in China too?), and observe how Double Happiness packs them in, the young hip crowd spilling out onto Liverpool Street.
　　A more main-street address (in this case Collins Street) brings a more mainstream crowd. At the Long Room, professionals -- young to middle-age -- pack a bar that must be Melbourne's longest. With a good music mix but no dancing, this is a place for friends to clump together in the lounge-style seating areas on the ground level or hide away in private alcoves behind sheer curtains on the mezzanine.
　　But if you're looking for a more stylishly dressed, sophisticated crowd, venture back down the lanes (Alfred Place, off Little Collins, which parallels Little Bourke) to Comme. With its stark black-and-white interior, warmed by soft golden lighting and touches of old European "Grand Hotel" luxury, Comme is where the John Barrymore in you can woo the Greta Garbo in her across its sleek gray marble bar.
　　For something more decadent, slink into the Gin Palace, a sunken bar in a lane off Little Collins Street. It's the ideal rendezvous, where secrets are muted by hushed dusty brown upholstery, decadent wingback chairs and tassled drapes.
　　In the maze of Melbourne, I have found my home. I order the "Luis Buñuel Surrealist Martini," named for the acclaimed filmmaker. They understand the fetish required of a martini here, the bartender handling the implements with such meticulous care as to remind one of a chemist, or a surgeon, but one in times less antiseptic, less white-coat. He proceeds in strict adherence to a recipe from Buñuel's autobiography, "My Last Sigh."
　　My bartender knows that Buñuel does not direct the maker of the martini, as some would have it, to merely let "a ray of sunlight shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin." That, Buñuel makes clear, is the suggestion of "connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry," and is a naughty play on Saint Thomas Aquinas's description of the conception of Jesus, where the "generative powers of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin's hymen 'like a ray of sunlight through a window -- leaving it unbroken.'"
　　For the Buñuel martini, shaker, glass and gin are kept in a freezer for two days before use. The bartender starts by pouring a few drops of Noilly Prat vermouth and a half teaspoon of Angostura bitters over ice. After a shaking, he strains and discards the liquid, leaving behind ice stained pink by the bitters and giving off a spicy aroma. He pours in the gin, shakes again, strains and serves the martini. There is no garnish in the Louis Buñuel. This is not supper.
　　You could do well to have that at the Melbourne Supper Club.
　　While on a main street (Spring, across from the state's Parliament House), the Melbourne Supper Club is marked by a brass nameplate so discreet you'll half think you shouldn't be opening its door. But venture up the stairs that immediately greet you upon entering and there you will find soft lighting, leather chesterfield sofas and a sophisticated late-night menu: toasted sandwiches, oysters, caviar, champagne and a great wine list.
　　Paul Jeffers for The Wall Street Journal　　Secreted away off Flinders Street on Hosier Lane, Movida is surrounded by Melbourne's finest example of graffiti by local and international artists.　　
　　For a more casual atmosphere and an earlier meal, MoVida is buzzy and packed. Try the anchoa, a hand-filleted anchovy from Spain's Cantabrian coast served on crisp flat toast with smoked-tomato sorbet: a burst of warm saltiness dancing on your tongue with a splash of cold sweetness. Do your best to put it in your mouth whole. Another star is cecina, air-cured Wagyu beef thinly sliced with a truffle foam and poached egg.
　　You'll find these unpredictable creations of MoVida's secreted away off Flinders Street, on Hosier Lane, which boasts perhaps Melbourne's finest example of graffiti art, "bombed" (in graffiti-art parlance) by local artists as well as international legends of the craft such as Banksy. It's a burst of defiant, colorful creativity -- perhaps the apotheosis of Melbourne's outlaw alter ego.
　　But don't bet on this laneway laxity lasting for long -- and not because the burghers of Melbourne will paint over these creations. No, they're more likely to register them into respectability via the National Trust (debate about which has been raging for years). Today some of Melbourne's graffiti artists work in broad daylight with no apparent fear of arrest. The ultimate rebel art is being brought into line.