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$$ | Fitzroy |
A chalkboard on the exposed brick wall lists eight dry and six sweet sherries to start (or finish), and there are Spanish and Portuguese wines to accompany your selection of tapas and raciones (larger shared plates). Seated at a table or on a stool at the bar, begin with anchovy tapa, and go on to the authentic paella. Just leave room for dessert; the churros and chocolate are sinful. If you really can't decide, a dessert tasting plate for two absolves you of making a decision.
197 Gertrude St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3065, Australia
Known For
- Obscure meats
- Aged jamon
- Andalucian fare
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No lunch weekdays
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$$ | Carlton |
First opened in 1974, this iconic Romanesque bakery has moved around Carlton on several occasions, and the masses have followed. Its biggest undertaking is in the heart of Lygon Street and still filled with perfect biscotti, mouthwatering cakes, and great service. In addition to an expanded lunch menu, a wood-fire oven—specially imported from Italy—makes pizzas, and you can finish it all off with a perfect espresso or a thick European-style hot chocolate with a cornetto con crema (custard-filled croissant). Enjoy the same tempting delights at the beautiful, birdcage-like café in Flinders Lane, and at little outposts in the Myer department store in Bourke Street and Melbourne Airport (T4).
380 Lygon St., Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Known For
- Chocolate eclairs
- Decadent cake display
- Italian-style espresso
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$$$$ | St. Kilda |
This upscale bistro treads a very fine line between mannered elegance and decadence. A sleek marble bar and modishly ravaged walls contribute to the sense that you've stepped into a scene from La Dolce Vita. Happily, the restaurant is as serious about its food as its sense of style. Crisply roasted duck is now a local legend, and the pasta is always al dente. A seasonal lunch special (pasta with wine and coffee) for A$40 is a great value if you're nearby. For an informal drink before your meal, an adjoining bar has local wines and a light menu of the same high standards for those who failed to get a booking.
31 Fitzroy St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3182, Australia
Known For
- Expert staff
- Long lunches
- Crayfish omelet
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Reservations essential
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$$$ | St. Kilda |
Grab a window table at this very popular bay-side restaurant (housed in the former 1920s bathing pavilion), and enjoy wide-open views of St. Kilda beach and its passing parade of in-line skaters, skateboarders, dog walkers, and ice-cream lickers. Start with the day's oysters, move to the fish and meats cooked superbly over charcoal, and slow it down over wine and cheese at this long-standing St. Kilda icon. Owners Kevin and Gail Donovan are such natural hosts you may feel like bunking down on the plush cushions near the cozy fireplace.
40 Jacka Blvd., Melbourne, Victoria, 3182, Australia
Known For
- Top-notch seafood
- Ocean views
- Extensive wine list
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Reservations essential
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$$$$ | City Center |
You’ll find your place in one of the three levels at Farmer’s Daughters, in the fine-dining restaurant, in the deli, or up on the rooftop---its focus is the produce drawn from the rich farmlands of Gippsland, a region the size of Switzerland, to Melbourne’s east. Share small plates in the deli or opt for the chef’s selection (A$70), choose the Gippsland Getaway set menu in the restaurant (A$110), or take a cocktail made with locally sourced spirits up on the roof, for a true farm-to-plate experience. Its pantry serves coffee from 7:30 am on weekdays.
95 Exhibition St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Known For
- Locally grown ingredients
- Excellent cocktails
- Offers fine dining and a more casual deli
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Closed Sun.
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Recommended Fodor’s Video
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$$$$ | City Center |
Since 1928, dining at Florentino has meant experiencing the pinnacle of Melbourne hospitality. After taking a seat in the famous mural room, with its huge chandeliers, wooden panels, and Florentine murals, you can sample dishes like suckling pig, and spanner crab risotto. The three-course menu is A$150 while the five-course Gran Tour menu costs A$180. Downstairs, the Grill focuses on wood-fired dishes including pici (pasta) with wild boar ragu or grass-fed steaks, while in the Cellar Bar, you can start your day with Italian pastries and espresso on the outside tables from 8 am, or finish the night with a glass of wine and pasta of the day.
80 Bourke St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Known For
- Food and wine pairings
- Romantic atmosphere
- Tuscan dishes
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No lunch Sat. Closed Sun., Reservations essential
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$$$ | City Center |
Superb Cantonese cuisine is the hallmark of one of Australia's truly great Chinese restaurants, which is still receiving awards after opening in 1975. The restrained elegance of the design, deftness of the service, and intelligence of the wine list puts most other restaurants to shame. Those in the know don't order from the menu at all but simply ask the waiter to bring the specials, which often changes between lunch and dinner with the arrival of produce fresh from suppliers.
17 Market La., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Known For
- Peking duck
- Retro decor
- Sautéed pearl meat
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No lunch Sun., Reservations essential
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$ | City Center |
Serving restaurant meals at breakfast and brunch, Higher Ground leads the pack for early morning dining. Grab a well-crafted pour-over and pastries, or linger over eggs paired with cauliflower, market fish, or the best ricotta hotcakes in town. The dinner service takes it up a notch with 12-hour lamb and a drinks menu that featuring Australian craft beers and wines. With its vast ceilings and raw brick walls, the decor is pure industrial chic. Avoid the busy peak periods.
650 Little Bourke St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Known For
- Excellent coffee
- Innovative food pairings
- Soaring interiors
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: No dinner Sun.--Wed.
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$$ | City Center |
The name means "alleyway" and in a sea of dumpling houses in Melbourne, down this little alleyway, you'll find the best of them all. The boiled pork dumplings are popular (A$14.20 for 12), though the panfried variations of pork, chicken, prawn, and chives hold up well, too. The staff is highly trained, and if the space on the ground floor is too snug, ask to go upstairs where there's room to breathe. Bookings are essential, but if you're feeling lucky, arrive at 11:30 am on the dot to try for a table—there will probably be a line of hopefuls already.
14–16 Market La., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Known For
- Wantons with hot chili sauce
- Bustling atmosphere
- Extensive menu
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$$$$ | City Center |
Taking his inspiration from the steak houses of North America, Rockpool is prolific Australian chef Neil Perry's flagship brand. Start with the whole grilled king prawns and move onto a range of beef cuts---which have been aged and butchered in-house---from the wood-fire grill. Expect deeply knowledgeable staff who can answer your questions on dry aging, wagyu grades or why they serve antibiotic-free beef. One of the city's best-kept secrets is the spectacular wagyu burger on the bar menu (A$19). Pair with one of Rockpool's excellent wines by the glass for the perfect lunch-on-the-go. The grill and bar menu are closed Mon. and Tues. but the bar is open daily.
8 Whiteman St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3006, Australia
Known For
- Premium dry-aged beef
- Wines by the glass
- Expert service
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$ | City Center |
At one of a series of hole-in-the-wall diners in busy Centre Place, pull up a stool and load your little table with stewed pork-belly buns, made from a family recipe employing 10 different spices. The little diner and its mother restaurant, in the Midcity Centre arcade, are also justly famed for their dumplings filled with a fine mackerel-and-coriander mousse. Wash it all down with an Australian craft beer. The queues move quickly, and it's worth the wait.
5 Centre Pl., Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Known For
- Pork-belly buns
- Craft beer
- Quick service
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$ | Brunswick East |
This is the place for authentic Italian pizza: chef Johnny Di Francesco trained in Naples to make pizza to the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana rules, and has consistently won titles of world's best margherita, and also best pizzeria in Oceania. Besides pizza, the restaurant serves excellent pasta and other Italian dishes in a buzzing section of Lygon Street. There are also iterations in Essendon, Southbank, Mornington and the Yarra Valley and an aptly titled gelato spinoff, Zero Gradi, in Brunswick.
99 Lygon St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3057, Australia
Known For
- World's best margherita pizza
- House-made gelato
- Slick decor
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$$ | Carlton |
Matriarch Abla Amad has been re-creating the much-loved family recipes from her homeland of Lebanon since 1979. This intimate restaurant resembles a lounge room of a family house, which with Abla walking around talking to diners, adds to the feeling of being looked after. Bookings are recommended and you can BYO wine.
109 Elgin St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3053, Australia
Known For
- Family owned
- Chicken and rice
- Homemade baklava
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Closed Sun. No lunch
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$$$ | City Center |
Every city center needs a place like this, with a drop-in bar and lively dining room. At lunchtime no-time-to-dawdle business types tuck into Italian classics, while those with a sweet tooth will go weak at the knees over a decadent tiramisu. Things get a little moodier at night, when a Campari and soda at the bar is an almost compulsory precursor to dinner. Self-caterers should peruse its beautiful little produce store, next door.
11–25 Crossley St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Known For
- Great service
- Gnocchi osso buco
- Macchiato cocktail
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Closed Sun. and Mon. No lunch Sat., Reservations essential
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$$ | City Center |
This all-day bar and kitchen brings Indigenous food and culture to the center of the city. First Nations chef Nornie Bero draws on her upbringing in the Torres Strait Islands to create a menu loaded with uniquely Australian herbs, spices, and teas. Seeking to use sustainable and social enterprise suppliers, try the house damper and wattleseed coffee, and get adventurous if you find emu fillets or pickled watermelon salad on the menu.
Flinders St. and Swanston St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Known For
- Indigenous music
- Artworks by First Nations artists
- Supporting social enterprises
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$$ | South Yarra |
If you're looking for a quintessential Italian dining experience in a place where it's easy to imagine yourself back in the old country, this is it. Fashionable, look-at-me types flock here for coffee and pastries downstairs, or more-leisurely meals upstairs in the warm, woody dining room. Try the melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi, or calamari Sant' Andrea (lightly floured and shallow fried).
581 Chapel St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3141, Australia
Known For
- Decadent tiramisu
- Knowledgeable staff
- Traditional menu
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$$ | Fitzroy |
Charcoal Lane is a social enterprise restaurant providing vulnerable young people with an opportunity to transform their lives by gaining a traineeship in the restaurant business. The inventive menu includes many Australian bushland ingredients, and the dishes have an Aboriginal influence. Named after a song by acclaimed Aboriginal singer/songwriter Archie Roach, it is housed in the former health service community center, dubbed Charcoal Lane by the many Aboriginal people, who for decades would drop in and swap stories and wisdom. They might include starters of roasted emu fillet or a wild food tasting plate of native produce. Mains include wallaby wrapped in Parma ham and pumpkin and wattleseed gnocchi. Desserts also have a "bush tucker" influence.
136 Gertrude St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3065, Australia
Known For
- <PRO>feel-good dining</PRO>
- <PRO>native meats</PRO>
- <PRO>chic decor</PRO>
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Closed Sun. and Mon., Credit cards accepted
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$$ | City Center |
Shared plates of Southeast Asian dishes form the basis of Chin Chin's popular menu. Modeled on hawker-style dining, come for early or late for lunch or dinner to avoid the rush. Otherwise, kill your wait time over a cocktail at the Go Go Bar downstairs---DJs set the tone late into the night Wednesday to Sunday.
125 Flinders La., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
Known For
- Kingfish sashimi
- Feed Me menu
- Sophisticated curries
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Reservations not accepted
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$$ | Carlton |
A major player in Melbourne's pizza wars, D.O.C. has perfected the art of using fresh, simple ingredients to create something special. The real treat lies in the pizza of the day. One with Ubriaco Amarone cheese, Romana artichokes, smoked toasted almonds, radicchio, and shaved Parmesan might be on offer, or perhaps another with Petrilli passata, garlic, artisan stracciatella, Cantabrico anchovies, and basil (around A$25). Whatever is in season or comes in, they will use. A chocolate pizza is at the ready for those with a sweet tooth. They also have a delicatessen around the corner (330 Lygon Street), which could be a good option for a packed lunch, and there's other locations in Southbank and the picturesque seaside town of Mornington.
295 Drummond St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3053, Australia
Known For
- Pizza specials
- Mozzarella degustation
- Passionate service
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$$ | St. Kilda |
With its blazing fires, artfully smoky walls, and striking, art deco–ish wrought-iron ceiling lights, this three-decade-old restaurant has a lived-in, neighborly look. The food is good, its Australian wine is taken very seriously, and the kitchen is open until late each night.
54 Acland St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3182, Australia
Known For
- <PRO>live music</PRO>
- <PRO>shared plates</PRO>
- <PRO>local favorite</PRO>
Restaurant Details
Rate Includes: Credit cards accepted
