50 Best Restaurants in Melbourne Right Now (original) (raw)
Photograph: Anthony Hart
This city is a treasure map for food lovers. And if an X factor marks the spot, then these ones have it in spades...
October 2024: Spring calls for more time outdoors, doing fun activities like these ones and soaking up some of those (slowly) emerging rays. All that sudden outdoor action calls for dining out, too! With this list on hand, you'll never be short on ideas.
The continually evolving and expanding dining scene in Melbourne is both a blessing and a curse: how do you choose between so many incredible restaurants? Well, that's where we come in. Stop endlessly scrolling, and commit to making your way through Time Out’s list of the best restaurants in the state right now. Our always-hungry local experts and editors have curated 2024's most delicious and divine, innovative and imaginative, comforting and familiar, memorable and magical dining experiences right here at your fingertips. From old favourites and culinary institutions such as Attica, Stokehouse and Flower Drum, to emerging standouts and instant icons such as Serai, Gimlet and Amaru, we've got it all covered here. And as for the brand new restaurant and bar openings catching our eye? Check out this guide instead.
Get out, and get eating! You've got a lot to get through!
Prefer a tipple-focused adventure? These are the best bars in Melbourne. Looking for a knock-out dining experience that won't break the bank? Look no further than our list of Melbourne's best cheap eats. And for hot new openings, check out our best newcomers guide.
The 50 best restaurants in Melbourne
This seafood institution's luxe beach house charms have had us spellbound for decades – and like a fine wine, it's only getting better with time. The multi-storied luxe beach house slash relaxed diner transports our serious city-fatigued souls to a cool and calming Aussie seaside escape. It’s got all the necessary ingredients: picturesque ocean views, award-winning seafood, a sustainable ethos that nabbed its Legend Award at our 2023 Food and Drink Awards, quality wines and some of the best and brightest well-trained service in the biz. We couldn’t be more infatuated.
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Time Out's Restaurant of the Year in 2023 may be almost a decade old, but it still stands out as one of the most energising fine dining experiences in Melbourne. This farm-to-table restaurant kitchen sources all of its ingredients from nearby Cardinia, owned and run by friends of the chefs. Even if you haven’t done your research, it’s immediately clear that there’s a reverence for organic locally sourced ingredients at O.My. Each dish elevates humble produce to new heights, an alchemical feat that looks far outside the box in delivering an experience you'll remember.
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To question Gimlet’s beauty is like pondering out loud whether the sky is blue. One foot through the door into the Trader House team’s almighty fine diner and you’re swept into an era of astonishingly impressive 1920s glamour. The handsome, plush curved booths invite you to settle in and share a bottle of Champers with a friend, uniformed staff skate around the floor with ease, and warm light dances off the grand chandeliers overhead.
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The only reason this OG Melbourne institution has given up top spot on this list, is because we know it doesn’t need first place on this, or any other list, to continue its reign as a city-wide favourite. Flower Drum is rooted in enough history to step aside and make space for some young guns to forge their path through the upper echelons of the Melbourne food scene.
Under the stewardship of the Grossi family, this Bourke Street Italiano staple still shines. The grand Mural Room is one of Melbourne’s last bastions of lavish European dining charm where the lighting is set to dim, and the mood set upon arrival by the proffering of a handbag stool. Through three generations of hard graft and some damned fine cooking they’ve cemented their place in the city’s dining history.
Don’t give up if you’re finding it difficult to get a table at Navi. Once you’ve scored a booking, you’re in for a first-rate culinary adventure that’s both rare and engaging – all while being joyously laidback. Navi is referred to on the website as head chef and owner Julian Hills’ ‘dream’ and you can taste how much heart he’s poured into it – from the use of native seasonal produce (which Hill learnt about directly from Indigenous foragers) to his ongoing relationships with sustainable and ethical farmers. There’s no doubt this restaurant is at the pinnacle of Melbourne’s growing conscious dining scene.
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Amaru offers one of Melbourne's most thrilling contemporary dining experiences right now. Nestled in leafy Armadale, the restaurant is run by chef Clinton McIvey (Auterra) and offers multi-course seasonal degustation tastings with the option to pair alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages. Expect fresh local produce with a native edge, cutting-edge fermentation and cooking techniques, and plating aesthetics prettier than a picture.
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We’ve come a long way since Brae burst onto a dining scene with a nascent interest in sustainability and produce-driven dining. Now those ideas are more familiar and we barely blink as a deep-fried curl of parsnip adds its autumnal warmth to an apple dessert, or when a locally brewed beer takes the spotlight midway through a degustation’s matched wines. But familiarity does nothing to diminish the spell that is cast by this idyllic dining experience. It’s expensive, it’s far away, and it’s worth every dollar and kilometre you will invest. The returns are genuinely priceless.
Time Out’s 2022 Restaurant of the Year (also our Best Casual Dining Venue) impressed us from the outset, a shot in the arm for the city’s food culture. Riffing on chef Ross Magnaye’s Filipino heritage without suggesting anything like straightlaced authenticity, the fire-licked food is irreverent, playful and fun while also introducing the non-Filipino Melbournians to a new world of flavour. Backed by a pithy, natural-leaning wine list and a whole lot of buzz, the menu is a tour-de-force of things we want to eat. Such as the lechon, the roasted free-range pig married to a pineapple-infused, gently spicy-sweet palapa sauce. Or the deliciously inauthentic McScallop, a cheeky riposte to the golden arches starring a single fried scallop doused in deliriously rich crab-fat sauce cut through with papaya pickle and sandwiched in a toasted pandesal bun. The only challenging thing about Serai? Trying to score a table.
While our city's filled with a labyrinth of outstanding and historic establishments, few really deserve the coveted title of being a Melbourne culinary institution – an overused and often meaningless phrase. However, after experiencing a meal in the tranquil yet dynamic dining room at Kenzan, the Collins Street restaurant that has been serving traditional Japanese fare since 1981, you leave with the feeling that there aren’t many ways more apt to describe the place.
Etta has been hot on everyone’s lips since it entered the Brunswick East dining scene – particularly since head chef Rosheen Kaul joined the kitchen in 2020. In a sea of great restaurants, it’s tough to be truly exceptional but Etta straddles the line. A continuous reinvention of their classics seems key to the venue’s success – and if it continues on this trajectory, one can only assume great things are to come. But regardless of Etta’s future, it’s clear its stripes are well-deserved.
Exquisite dishes notwithstanding, Minamishima is a masterclass experience in excellent service and meticulous attention to detail. As we turn from one dish to the next, the table is meticulously constructed around us with different ceramic saucers and implements taking centre stage. Everything is elegant and artful, right down to the zig-zagged wet towel for us to dampen our hands with between sushi eating. A convivial quality is present in waitstaff. Minamishima’s genuine warmth and affection for what they do is matched by the sushi, the best we’ve had in Melbourne.
Time Out Melbourne food and drink contributor
After a few years away, we have a reinvigorated appreciation for Attica as a pillar of innovation and authenticity. It’s a restaurant doing incredible things with the best produce and ingredients Australia has to offer. Attica is not just a meal. It's an all-consuming sensory experience that deserves a top spot because it continues to demonstrate to us all what it means to be adaptable and ambitious – qualities we could all use a little more of.
Think of it as an ultra-boutique Japanese banquet running headlong into performance art and theatre. Omakase is a showcase of skill and showmanship, although Warabi deformalises the experience with an emphasis on chef-diner interactions. The cross-counter chat proves a welcome pressure valve to those gathered in the serene, timber-lined cocoon lording it above Collins Street – at least before the sake has its chance to do some mood-loosening of its own. The rules of Warabi engagement are as follows: 12 ringside seats, $245 a head. Like a stage production, it waits for no one: kick-off is 5.30pm and 8pm, with a two-hour sitting time proving long enough to transport you to Tokyo’s glittering Ginza and back. Two hours of omakase power later, the chef show is over. The temptation is to clap, but even this dining spectacle demands some deference. So let’s make up for it now. Applause.
Both the dining room and kitchen at Vue have recently been refurbished, while the menu has evolved to become a 14-serving series of culinary enchantments – not too far of a stray from the globally recognised fine diner’s usual brand of refinement, but with just enough changes to thrill returning and new visitors. (Don’t fret – that mind-blowing chocolate soufflé hasn't gone anywhere.) Executive chef Hugh Allen and the senior culinary team have collaborated closely with exceptional Aussie producers to highlight local seasonal ingredients. Highlights from the opening menu included grilled lamb sweetbreads with asparagus sourced from Koo Wee Rup and fermented macadamia sauce; padrón peppers stuffed with heirloom eggplant cooked in wild nasturtium oil; and grilled marron tail with a fried native herb paste followed by a warm marron roe custard.
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Koreans have a word for food that’s consumed with alcohol – anju – and while a lot of the anju we see here in Melbourne are things like sticky soy garlic-glazed fried chicken wings or thin strips of beef sizzling away on a Korean barbecue, tiny eatery Chae is here to highlight a different side to Korean cuisine. Chae started in a Brunswick apartment and has recently experienced a change of scenery, relocating to Cockatoo, to be surrounded by greenery and nature around 50km southeast of the Melbourne CBD. Chae remains as intimate, as exquisite and as charming as ever.
Farmer’s Daughters is bringing Gippsland to the city at its swish multi-level venue at 80 Collins St. Executive chef Alejandro Saravia spent many years bringing his vision of a deli, restaurant and bar to life, and the venue was welcomed with open arms by Melburnians seeking a taste of their own state. The colour palette is inspired by gumtrees, from olive green through to terracotta, and each level of the three-storey venue represents a different location. Sink into brown leather banquettes and snack on warm Irish soda bread with cultured cream, Koo Wee Rup asparagus with black garlic and Tarago brie mousse before moving onto the likes of rabbit with Pink Fir Apple, black garlic and leek chutney or dry age O’Connor beef with Wattlebank Farm oyster mushrooms and spring brassicas. Dining at Farmer's Daughters is as much of an educational experience, as it is a luxurious, wholesome and memorable meal.
What could be so extraordinary about yet another Italian joint in a city brimming with some of the best of them? Do your research though, and you’ll quickly discover that Alta Trattoria is not, in fact, just “another Italian joint”. The restaurant’s specialty is a little different, zeroing in on the northern Italian region of Piedmont, which is located at the foot of the Alps and home to some of the boot nation’s most prized culinary exports. In addition, the team behind Alta Trattoria includes Luke Drum (Carlton Wine Room), chef McKay Wilday (Victoria by Farmers Daughters), Carlo Grossi (Ombra, Grossi Florentino) and vino expert James Tait (King and Godfree). Anticipate rustic yet elegant trattoria-style dishes, sophisticated and rare Italian wines, and keen service who've nailed the brief.
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A chef, a sommelier and a maitre d’ walk into a bar. Bada-bing. Carlton Wine Room is no joke but the brilliant result of three of the industry’s accomplished stars banding together to take the leap into restaurant ownership. Snacks stand out as stars here: order the anchovy with fried bread, ricotta and pickled cucumber, and the Stracciatella with pickled mushrooms, chive oil and potato focaccia, always.
Into the Carlton kingdom of carbs and cheese comes fine diner Kazuki’s, and winner of our Best Fine Diner award in 2019. Most of this restaurant's magic is thanks to a great chef – Kazuki Tsuya from Akita in Northern Japan, who blends classic French culinary techniques with Japanese flavours and top Aussie produce. The result? Dishes that are well worth the dosh.
Because after living through a global pandemic, we make our own rules now. We know we're only supposed to include one restaurant per spot on this list, but when you live in a city with just so much good food, you have to make a couple of exceptions here and there, so coming in hot together are Maha and Maha East. Like an older, responsible sister, Maha continues to show up just the way you want her to, providing comfort in the form of whipped hummus, slow-roasted lamb shoulder, and smoked aged rice, like an upgraded version of a familiar and warming home-cooked meal. But Maha East, her sassy, independent younger sister, who doesn’t like being told what to do, is bringing a taste of the Middle East to Chapel Street, in a carefree, fun and fresh way.
Ishizuka's menu specialises in Japanese kaiseki. It’s also a rabbit hole, both quasi-literally (the ordeal of finding it through a nondescript door, along an arcade, down a level via a keypad and elevator and through another nondescript door, can feel a little daunting, which is probably the point) and figuratively, thanks to chef Tomotaka Ishizuka performing the food equivalent of needlepoint.
23. Tedesca Osteria
Tedesca Osteria on the Mornington Peninsula is a fixed-menu dining experience, that is an utter celebration of locally grown and sourced produce. While the food is undoubtedly excellent, this farmhouse-fantasy is not as easy-going of an experience as it may seem from the outside, for example, it is just so difficult to get a booking. But hey, we know that is part of its allure. In any event, the food is good enough to persist with your quest to book. Join as many of the waitlists as they will let you and keep your fingers crossed that they will call you with a last-minute cancellation spot, so you can see for yourself why we named it the best regional restaurant of 2022.
There’s something brewing in the heart of Little Collins Street. It could be the numerous jars of potato skins or cabbage fermenting away in Sunda’s latest sibling, Aru Restaurant, or perhaps it’s Khanh Nguyen’s playful and determined spirit. Whatever it is, it’s a welcome change in a relatively underserved pocket of the CBD. The venue heroes pre-colonial techniques of cookery across Southeast Asia – “cooking over fire, preserving, fermenting, dry-aging, curing and all those kinds of treatments” says Nguyen. It’s a spirited take on the ‘f’ word that can often miss the mark, but here, Nguyen manages to make light-hearted commentary on colonisation through his fusion food, and he does so in a way that’s both moreish and respectful.
Did ‘fusion’ really ever leave? Was it merely masquerading as ‘new-style’ all along? And when it’s this delicious, does it even matter? These are the hard-hitting questions you must ponder at Victor Liong’s time-honoured, pan-Asian institution Lee Ho Fook. At this Melbourne favourite Australian producers and grocers, and seasonal ingredients, are championed through a platform of modern Chinese food. Perhaps it'll be Tasmanian ocean trout sashimi with black bean and orange dressing to start, followed by the lacquered duck with quince hoisin, spring onion, and bing bread, all capped off with a rose tea and red fruit trifle with vanilla and osmanthus cream. Whatever you eat, it's sure to be excellent.
Cutler and Co has been a mainstay on the fickle Melbourne hospitality circuit for many years, and for good reason. Andrew McConnell opened the restaurant way back when in 2009 in a former metal works factory, and it has undergone a transformative evolution over all those years, emerging as his flagship restaurant. However Cutler and Co has stayed true to its values of refined, simple and hospitable dining throughout the years, as the industry continued to grow and evolve around it. Seasonable menus champion modern Australian food showcasing local producers and growers, expertly crafted by the skilful team in the kitchen.
Like many of us during the COVID lockdowns, Italian-born chef Andre Vignalli tried to make lemon juice from a suddenly sour situation. He launched his own pasta delivery service, Al Dente, which quickly spread in popularity around Melbourne and has since evolved into the upscale modern restaurant it is today – Al Dente Enoteca. Vignalli and Bonadima’s dishes change with the seasons to focus on local quality produce and regionally inspired Italian flavours. Think house-baked pane with cultured butter and an impressively rare aged balsamic vinegar reduction, panzerotti pomodoro with mozzarella and basil (the most epic take on a pizza pocket you’ll ever try) and juicy golden-fried olives stuffed with meat for starters.
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Atria’s version of sitting by the bar is parking yourself along a 19-metre-long Victorian ash counter that overlooks floor-to-ceiling windows of the city’s skyline as chefs assemble your dishes in front of you. Is it one of the most stunning views from a Melbourne restaurant? We think so. At every turn, Atria’s dishes are strikingly unique and, most of all, delicious spotlights on local Victorian produce. Step into the black orchid-scented lobby of Ritz-Carlton and ascend into the clouds for one of the most exciting dining experiences going around.
When young Abla Amad came to Melbourne in 1954 she brought the love of cooking developed while watching her mother in their north Lebanese village. Later, she sharpened her culinary skills with the Lebanese women who would meet in each other’s kitchens to exchange recipes. Abla loved feeding people so much that meal-making for her family turned into hosting Sunday feasts for the community – and then came the restaurant. It’s easy to see why this has been a Carlton institution for 40 years. There’s no pomp or pretence here – it's so authentic it should come with a certificate. Places like Abla’s are not just about a good feed. They are part of the fabric of our city, and in these days of hyped new openings, it's important to celebrate this rare breed of restaurant.
Khanh Nguyen’s departure from Sunda last July left many, myself included, wondering what would become of the once-lauded contemporary Southeast Asian-Australian restaurant. But former sous Nabil Ansari’s appointment as the new head chef (after a brief stint at Firebird) has ensured the venue remains in good hands. Sunda is not the same restaurant that opened on Punch Lane in 2018, but its next wave is a promising one.
Having trouble finding Soi 38? Just follow your nose. While the address is equal parts intriguing and perplexing, the heady scent of Thailand – its star anise, galangal, chilli, lime and herbs – will lure you inside the multi-level poured concrete carpark down a laneway off Bourke Street. Don’t go thinking this cheap-eat champion is big on the novelty and low on the substance. The brightly coloured haunt in the middle of the urban jungle can claim to have introduced Melbourne to authentic Bangkok-style boat noodles.
Good, honest food. Sometimes, it’s the only thing you crave. Like the type of meal your grandmother prepared for you when you were a child. Or freshly rolled pierogi. The couple at the helm of this new Brunswick East restaurant, Guy Daley and Dominika Sikorska, are widely respected for bringing some of the most authentic Polish cuisine to Melbourne and they're absolutely smashing it.
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Started up by Ezard trio Ned Trumble, Keat Lee and Chris Lerch, Lagoon Dining is consistently tantalising our tastebuds with some of the most considered and punchiest contemporary takes on classic dishes. If you’re fixated with labels, Lagoon would be best categorised under that all-encompassing moniker ‘pan-Asian’. Very few dishes hew to the traditional. Yet true Southeast and East Asian influences are apparent everywhere, from the dishes Lagoon chooses to spotlight to the condiments they incorporate into said dishes – think sambal belacan, white pepper togarashi, gochujang, Chinkiang vinegar.
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Possibly you’re here for a quick bowl of pasta and a glass of wine at the handsome marble bar. Good for you, you’re not alone. If you can afford the time, though, take it easy and consult the starters - Stracciatella, salumi, chargrilled octopus or grilled asparagus. But don't fill up before the main event: the pasta, of course. The braised duck gnocchi is a menu mainstay, for good reason, but if that's too heavy for lunch, go for something a little lighter such as the spaghettini with scallops, anchovies and gremolata. That Tipo 00 is one of the country’s best carb bars is not new news. That it continues to excite after this many years is cause for celebration. Tipo 00 is the kind of restaurant you want to show off to visitors, the kind of place that makes you proud to call Melbourne home.
This is a kitchen bringing the kind of modern Turkish food you’d find in Istanbul’s vigorous restaurant scene to Balaclava with a program of pickling, preserving, fermenting and hanging (yoghurt, that is). It’s fresh, pretty, textured and refined.
The heady smell of incense is apparent as soon as you walk into Flint’s dark confines. Charcoal walls surround a centrepiece open kitchen where sous chef Yukio Endo works his magic on the night we visit. Through an alcove is a private mezzanine dining area that overlooks the restaurant while perched aloft. Flint combines the no-waste fermentation ethos of the since-closed Parcs with a healthy respect for flames and a penchant for wood-fired grilling. There are no ovens at Flint – only ‘fire, smoke and charcoal’. There's a sense of theatre here and the kitchen surprises with every turn and trick.
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Ras Dashen has been sating the appetites of inner westies for more than a decade, and it shows no signs of abating. The colourfully eclectic interiors of Ras Dashen are as inviting as they were when Ethiopian refugee Wondimu Alemu first set up shop on Nicholson Street in 2011. Having since moved to Barkly Street in 2017, paintings and scarves striped in the green, yellow and red of the Ethiopian flag hang from terracotta-coloured walls alongside ornate bowls and woven hats – if you look closely, you can even see Alemu’s beaming face memorialised in one of the paintings.
Alemu and his wife Alemitu Aberra are the heart and soul of Ras Dashen. Alemu is as friendly to first-timers as he is to seasoned visitors, full of such mirth it’s impossible not to smile in his presence as he punctuates each sentence with a merry cackle.
Ras Dashen’s Ethiopian fare has something for everyone (vegans included), but what you do need to be is someone who’s comfortable eating with your hands. There’s no better way to enjoy torn off bits of injera – the fermented flatbread that's one of Ethiopia’s most famed exports – laden with your favourite curries.
The best thing to do is order several dishes, all of which will arrive on two different kinds of injera: a white sorghum one and a brown sorghum one. Doro wot is traditionally exceedingly spicy and in Ras Dashen’s iteration, it retains a singular heat. Spiced with berbere – the fiery and aromatic Ethiopian seasoning blend – the doro wot is suitably thickened from caramelised onions and pleasantly oily, clinging to the crevices of the bone-in chicken pieces and hard-boiled egg.
Another mainstay in Ethiopian cuisine, tibs are sliced beef or lamb pan-fried in butter, garlic and onion. Ras Dashen’s dehrek tibs are a harmonious counterpoint to the saucy doro wot; the dry-fried slivers of lamb are moreish and light. The next time we visit, we’ll be sure to order the special clay tibs that appear on more than one table.
Pulses are an integral component of Ethiopian cuisine and the number of shiro (chickpea stew) dishes on Ras Dashen’s menu speaks to this. We opt for the ful instead, where fava beans are cooked and topped with butter so rich it has to be clarified, quartered tomatoes, crumbled feta and halved hard-boiled eggs. Often ingested in the morning, Ras Dashen’s ful would qualify as a breakfast of champions, so hearty and fulsome (heh) it is.
A greens dish is paramount at this stage and the gomen – collard greens cooked with herbs and spices – delivers on every front. Basic yet somehow still a standout dish due to how Ras Dashen excels in rendering the simplest combination of ingredients exquisite, the gomen cuts through the heaviness of some of our other dishes. Also not to be missed is the unassumingly named ‘small serve of veggie dish’ under the extras, which turns out to be a well-balanced potato, carrot and cabbage stir-fry.
Melbourne diners are by now familiar with West and Central African food due to more recent waves of migration from Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, but Ras Dashen remains one of the local pioneers of East African food – introducing many a Melburnian to injera bread and the dishes that are so integral to Ethiopian cuisine. It continues to attract a devoted crowd and so it should – the food remains impeccable, the service is the friendliest you’ll encounter, the restaurant a home away from home.
Time Out Melbourne never writes starred reviews from hosted experiences – Time Out covers restaurant and bar bills for reviews so that readers can trust our critique.
While you're trawling the 'cray for tasty eats, check out these spots in the neighbourhood. Hungry for more? Broaden your horizons with our round-up of Melbourne's best African restaurants.
What we have here is not so humble as an osteria. Sure, it has an underlying rustic Italian brief, exemplified by the chargrilled whole octopus brutishly splayed over a sauce made of the fiery Calabrian spreadable salami, `nduja. Despite its aims to be everything but a pasta bar, Ilaria's signature has become a plate of paccheri (thick tubes of pasta) strewn with nubs of Crystal Bay prawn meat, grounded in tomato and sorrel purees and anointed with the heady cologne of prawn oil.
We’re at the end of the line. Literally – the end of the Hurstbridge Line, a 50-minute train ride out of the CBD, is where you’ll find a cool rustic bolthole big enough for an open kitchen, vinyl spinning turntable and just 15 seats. It feels less like a conventional restaurant, and more like you’ve accidentally wandered into the bijou farmhouse of someone with really good taste.
Spoiler alert: you don’t enter via laundry anymore. The success of Helly Raichura’s tiny at-home Box Hill restaurant has precipitated her move to more “serious” Carlton North digs,
although the laneway entrance retains the enticing air of mystery (as does finding out the actual address only after booking).But while the location has changed, the brief of one of Melbourne’s most singular degustations remains the same: to explain and explore the food of her Indian heritage.
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You don’t get the menu until the end, and Gunn and his team of young chefs deliver food to the tables. They seem like they’re having fun. The diners seem like they’re having fun. What we’re witnessing here is the trickle-down effects of haute cuisine. Fun fine dining. File that one in Urban Dictionary.
This may be a Totti’s establishment but it’s the relaxed service that makes this eatery unabashedly Lorne. Not only did we love our experience, I want to have my next birthday dinner here. Totti’s, you’ve stolen our hearts, hook, line and sinker.
While Footscray is known for its African food, if you head a little closer towards the city to the Abyssinian for your dose of injera bread, you won't be disappointed. This Racecourse Road eatery serves up a combo of traditional and spiced-up Ethiopian dishes including kifto beef, goat with kemmam sauce and the lamb hot pot shiro bozena. Order the mixed platter feast to get a chef's choice of curries and a small salad served on a giant serve of delightfully spongy injera flatbread. Cutlery is barred here, so get your hands in there and sop up all the flavours.
Tucked inside Collins Street’s heritage-listed Olderfleet building, the street visible through a trio of ecclesiastical windows, Freyja is a restaurant immune from any accusations of culinary copying. Under the leadership of Jae Bang, formerly head chef at Norway’s two-Michelin-gonged Re- Naa, Freyja swings from daytime smørrebrød, the traditional Danish open sandwiches we prefer to think of as a full meal on rye, to a dinner menu packing cool Scandi sophistication. Ironically for a restaurant named after an over-worked Norse goddess, Freyja is trailblazing a work/life balance for its staff by opening only on Tuesday to Saturday. It’s another Scandinavian approach to life we’re happy to embrace. This goddess has earned her break, and our devotion.
'Eating house' doesn't quite cut it. ‘All-day diner’ falls worryingly short. In fact, when trying to sum up the place Cumulus Inc plays in Melbourne’s hungry heart, ‘favourite clubhouse’ comes as close as any description. And maybe that’s the thing about our winner of the 2018 Legend Award. Cumulus Inc is so many different things to so many different people. For city office workers, it’s the perfect show-off gaff for breakfast meetings with out-of-towners (bonus points for feigned nonchalance in the face of its boast-worthy fabulousness). For solo lunchers, it’s a place where singleton status is never a problem.
Scott Pickett has built his reputation on a jazz-riff approach to Michelin classicism, but here he’s favouring the visceral attractions of smoke, flame and char. The elemental approach to cooking goes hand-in-hand with the strictly a la carte menu and a pragmatic wine list that will please both the haves and the have-yachts.
As (typically) hours-long affairs, omakases tend to be an evening activity but Uminono is only open by day. That’s not the only way this chirashi bar deviates from convention. The restaurant exclusively serves raw seafood plus accouterments – no other protein in sight. And the chef doesn't even have a Japanese background; he’s French with classical training.But despite the odds, Uminono is a star.
Not that we needed it with the likes of Soi 38, Dodee Paidang and Nana Thai now in our midst, but Thai Tide is further proof that Melbourne’s Thai food scene is more alive and thriving than ever. Standing out in a city where standing out is never easy, Merica Charungvat’s pristine gem of a restaurant is treating our city to what may just be the boldest (and rarest) Thai flavour experience we can get our hands on yet, at least without booking flights to the ‘Land of Smiles’ itself. From ants larvae soup to a hot and cold tofu claypot, every dish at Thai Tide is a mouthwatering adventure.
Food & Drink Writer
If we were to rank Melbourne’s most talked-about restaurants by frequency of mention last year, Kafeneion would surely land in the top five. The tragic thing was, this interesting new Greek eatery from acclaimed restaurateur Con Christopoulos (City Wine Shop, The European, Siglo) initially advertised itself as a winter pop-up. So we didn’t know if it would stay or leave or where it would move to next – if anywhere. Given its widespread praise, I was a little embarrassed that I personally hadn’t checked out its temporary Bourke Street location. So news that the homestyle diner was living on upstairs at Spring Street’s Melbourne Supper Club was a relief.
Kafeneion (a play on the Greek term ‘kafeneio’, which refers to a traditional coffee house) aims to serve Melburnians a taste of true, traditional Greek comfort food. Think homestyle soups and hearty meat and vegetable dishes made from authentic village recipes you’re unlikely to find outside of the Hellenic motherland. The place itself has a touch of taverna about it, too, with basic white tablecloths and Supper Club’s home-y wood panelling. It’s easy to imagine merrily hanging out here until long after dinner as the Athenians do – and you absolutely can_,_ for it serves supper and drinks most nights until 3am.
But it’s just after work that a friend and I have blown in from the cold. The pallid, overcast sky in the CBD is only beginning to darken, and after a long, busy day, we’re in need of something comforting to eat.
The wine list is the first to land on our table, an interesting read for anyone less familiar with Greek drops than the nation’s Western European neighbours. From the Peloponnese region to Santorini and beyond, there’s a breadth of dry, floral and citrus-leaning varietals, ideal chasers for the traditional olive oil-rich braises – a cooking style known in Greek as ‘ladera_’_ – that Kafeneion is lauded for.
Our sprightly hostess, a consummate professional, is well-versed in both the drinks and food and kindly assists with our choices. True to the restaurant’s communal ethos (the menu encourages sharing), you can get wine by the carafe but we’ve started with a glass each instead: a 2022 rosé from the Nemea winemaker Gai’a. It’s made from agiorgitiko, a type of Greek red grape, and Gai’a is known for producing some of its finest expressions.
It's strange that mere moments earlier, I was wedged in a busy, brightly lit tram, squinting at work emails on my phone. Such is the transportative magic of Kafeneion and its lively Greek music and hospitality, we are now on holiday (if only for a few hours).
We gleefully plough into our plate of salty whipped cod roe (tarama) with thick hunks of village bread and swirl ouzo-cured slivers of kingfish on our tongues. I’m glad to be diving headlong into a mastika sour cocktail, for its rejuvenating, zesty tang is a wild but epic pairing with the feta-topped loukaniko sausage special that's come our way.
Loukaniko is a traditional Greek pork and beef sausage, made with herbs, lots of garlic and smoke. If this dish is still available when you visit, do yourself a favour and order it – it’s one of the best things I’ve tasted all year.
My friend isn’t sure exactly what she wants for a cocktail, so the waitress couriers this message to the bar along with her taste preferences. We’re promptly given something called a peach and pomegranate Daisy, a beautifully balanced drop, as is the fruity Olly’s Pommy I order next. Both drinks easily reach cocktail bar levels of wow, thanks to a bartender who’s adaptive and game enough to be spontaneous.
The superstars of our feast are the meat-heavy mains, of course. Cassis-like and onion aromas float heavenward from a Greek chicken pasta dish that’s been delivered straight from the heat, its tomatoey sauce blending seductively with the juice of chicken thighs. Another dish of tender lamb has been cooked with potatoes and wild oregano. It’s rustic, straightforward and on a chilly night, exactly what we crave.
Lidded by a massive square of feta, the Greek village salad is an excellent accompaniment for both meat dishes, bursting with plump olives, red onion slivers, cucumber and tomatoes. I do sometimes yearn for European tomatoes which have a much richer, sweeter taste, but until I can get flights to a Greek island, these are just fine by me.
An orange filo cake – otherwise known in Greek as portokalopita – seems fitting for dessert to round out what has been such an authentic, heartwarming meal. Its nectarous, orange syrup-infused sponge is based on a recipe from the co-owner’s friend’s mother, we’re told.
Ah, so this is real yiayia food we’re tasting. We could have guessed as much. But this sense of provenance is only just one part of the trifecta that makes up Kafeneion's winning recipe. There's also genuine service and a friendly atmosphere, ingredients which make you want to stay and kick on with the rest of the village.
There’s an old Greek proverb: “Where you hear many cherries, keep a small basket.” It’s a warning that when you hear lots of good things, expecting too much could lead to disappointment. While this is wise, the great thing about Melbourne is that great promise can and usually does bear great fruit. Kafeneion is a glowing example.
Time Out Melbourne never writes starred reviews from hosted experiences – Time Out covers restaurant and bar bills for reviews so that readers can trust our critique.
All about Greek eats? Check out our guide to Melbourne's best Greek restaurants right now.
After a two-year hiatus, Richmond locals and broader Melbournites alike can rejoice – Anchovy is back. The chef here is is emphatic that Anchovy is not a Vietnamese restaurant but rather an amalgamation of Australian and Vietnamese dining. Exploring the concept of "Viet Kieu" (the term for a Vietnamese person who lives outside of Vietnam), Anchovy simultaneously represents provenance and metamorphosis, in the most gloriously edible way.
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