Australia Travel: Best places to eat in Melbourne

There are dozens of new and delicious places to dine in Melbourne. Photo / Getty Images

Melbourne, increasingly also referred to as Naarm to reflect its traditional Kulin Nation people, endured almost nine months of continuous lockdown until the curtains of Covid-19 began to lift around this time last year. The great news is the city famous for its honed hospitality culture is back in full bloom and boasts a plethora of new and newish openings. Anna King Shahab ticked off a fair few during a recent week there.

Plant-based and plant-forward are big. Chef Shannon Martinez has opened a new and bigger iteration of her popular Smith & Daughters combining restaurant, deli and retail store – all of it vegan. The menu has a Mediterranean leaning with nods to Shannon’s Spanish heritage and a feeling of hearty familiarity – the menu is packed with meatballs, calamari, lamb ragu, grilled chicken and more.

My calamari and potatoes with sugo featured locally grown, perfectly waxy baby potatoes and calamari cleverly made with konjac, criss-crossed to better collect the rich tomato sugo. Cacio e pepe was as oozingly “cheesy” as you like, soy-based, with exactly the right punch of pepper. A chocolate and blood orange tart came with Jerusalem artichoke gelato, which is an unexpected icecream flavour I wish to meet again. Staff, including my server, Maia, are warmly efficient and smartly turned out with edgy vegan leather touches.

Smith & Daughters combines a restaurant, deli and retail store – all of it vegan. Photo / Anna King Shahab

A rash of expansive, many-faceted venues is spreading, the kind of places you can ascend and descend for varying vibes. On Lonsdale St in the city in a space that once manufactured cigarettes, HER and BKK is a beacon for fun-seeking, minus the smoke. HER on the ground floor offers a French, almost lobby bar feel, while BKK on the third floor is an entirely different spin: charcoal-fired Thai eatery. Of several larbs, I went with tofu (nice char, deliciously spiked with sawtooth coriander) and then a tom yum mama, a kind of all-in riff on the sour-spicy soup amped up with noodles, softshell crab and a silky egg yolk to mix through.

I headed up to the rooftop bar (where one can also order from the BKK menu with additional burgers, because bar). The tiled-floor space has a sweet city view and plenty of nooks to park up in. And you’d be mad not to take the lift back down to the first floor to pay a visit to The Music Room. It’s one sexy spot, an acoustically architectured “listening bar” with its sound selectors ranging from upcoming to established, and vibe varying from chill to all-out party – the night I visited French DJ and producer Sebastien Leger had dropped in behind the decks and the energy was big – Melbournians are clearly thrilled to be back doing these things.

Across the river, Stella is a member of a brigade reinvigorating South Yarra, a stylish Italian in a four-level 1800s heritage build: private dining in the basement, trattoria spaces airy and bright on the ground floor and a bit cosier and luxe on the first floor, and a lushly green-walled rooftop bar. I loved my kingfish crudo, complete with pops of caviar, and pappardelle with mixed mushrooms.

Stella is a stylish Italian in a four-level 1800s heritage building. Photo / Anna King Shahab

At the other end of the footprint scale, stamp-sized joints are making, well, a stamp. One of my favourite finds on this trip was Parcs, a wine bar focusing on stamping (sorry, can’t help it now) out waste, notably via fermentation and other methods of preservation. To put that on a plate, it might mean sitting down to a dish of rescued gai lan topped with a garum fermented from all sorts of food scraps, a plate of pasta umami-d up with a miso paste made from rescued bread, and a glass of plum wine making use of less than perfect fruit. A highlight dish for me (that I went back for a second time) was a perfectly seasoned crocodile bacalao topped with a peck of orange kosho and nutmeg.

The rooftop at Stella. Photo / Anna King Shahab

Pocket-sized Pearl Chablis and Oyster Bar does what the name says, in an elegantly appointed wee corner of an unassuming mid-city mall – take the escalator up one level, turn around and there it’s hiding. A chablis the likes of which you may only find in one or two spots in Paris rubs silk-like against oysters shucked to order, several other cold dishes, and a real-deal caviar service.

With the food prep space right there, the absence of a stove or oven makes for a serene experience as chef Jackson almost silently shucks and plates things up. My pre-dinner snack was bang on: sweet and briny Gazander Oysters from a small farm near Coffin Bay, SA, and one of the better kingfish ceviches I’ve had in ages, the firm but creamy fish dressed with touches of dashi, yuzu, fennel, and orange blossom. The latter was an especially good match for a glass of Domaine Billaud-Simon 2019 Chablis (the wine list extends well beyond chablis, in case you’re not that way inclined).

The city’s cultural heart, Federation Square, is now one of the best places to head to get a taste of regional Victorian and native flavours. An expression meaning “the biggest thank you” in the Torres Strait Islands, Big Esso is an all-day joint bringing to life chef and owner Nornie Bero’s dream of making native ingredients and indigenous cuisine more accessible. The seafood is especially enticing – we loved our tamarind pippies with bush tomato and samphire, and chargrilled octopus topped with desert lime nam jim and sea noodles. Saltbush damper with golden syrup butter mopped up juices nicely.

From the extensive and all-Aussie gin list, I chose the indigenous-owned Taka Native Fusion gin: superb. Occupying a prime spot with a terrace overlooking the river and lofty plane trees providing shade in the summer, Victoria by Farmer’s Daughters is chef and owner Alejandro Saravia’s second site in his mission to showcase Victoria on a plate. The elegant dining rooms are home to both a la carte experiences and set menus that highlight regions of Victoria on a rotating basis – Ballarat is the current star of the show.

Big Esso is an all-day joint that makes native ingredients and indigenous cuisine more accessible. Photo / Anna King Shahab

I love discovering cuisines that are under-represented back home and Melbourne offers plenty of that. Cambodia’s Kitchen is the only Cambodian eatery in the central city and when I visited, it was well-patronised by Khmer-speaking customers. The noodle soups are signature here, and I was chuffed with my pick of beef noodle soup – a thick and aromatic broth packed with a very generous serving of slow-cooked succulent chunks of beef shin as well as tendon, tripe, and housemade bouncy beef balls.

You choose your type of noodles and my server, Mika, soundly recommended the egg noodles for this soup; curly and springy, they were bang-on. I also tackled a selection of chive-filled rice cakes dipped into nuoc cham, and yet another plate piled with steamed jasmine rice topped with grilled marinated pork and housemade pickles with another moreish fish sauce and vinegar dressing.

Cambodia’s Kitchen is the only Cambodian eatery in the central city. Photo / Anna King Shahab

Fitzroy’s Rosella filled my cup with its perfect Puglian flavours, the perfect example being an entree of fave e cicoria – dried broad beans cooked in salted water and pureed with a lick of lemon juice and garlic, topped with sauteed chicory greens: a beautiful, bitter-salty-tart lesson in restraint, served with crusty bread and very good frantoio oil.

Fave e cicoria at Rosella: broad beans cooked in salted water and pureed with a lick of lemon juice and garlic. Photo / Anna King Shahab

Then came a pasta dish that instantly became a new favourite. Spaghetti all’assassina, said owner Rocco Esposito, translates as killer spaghetti – one bite and you’ll agree the name is fitting. As Rocco explained, a rich and garlicky tomato broth is brought to the boil and the spaghetti is added raw; it soaks up all the juices as it cooks through and the resulting texture is al dente as you like, with sticky bits from the bottom of the pot and zero chance of any sauce-sliding-off-pasta nonsense. Split prawns with sea herbs and gremolata added a briny freshness to the affair. Rocco owns a vineyard in Beechworth, and a glass of his Project 49 chardonnay was a beautiful choice alongside lunch.

Victoria by Farmer’s Daughters is chef and owner Alejandro Saravia’s second site. Photo / Anna King Shahab

Hot right now on Melbourne menus:

All sorts of mushrooms including oyster, king and shiitake – to see the incredible variety on offer head to Prahran Market and visit Damian “The Mushroom Man” Pike, whose stall proffers dozens of kinds. Better yet, book a tour of the market. Local food writer and guide Mish Lilley’s insight allowed me to get under the skin of a market I’d only scratched the surface of on previous visits (oh, and the tastings are a big drawcard, too).

Visit Damian ‘The Mushroom Man’ Pike at Prahran Market. Photo / Anna King Shahab

Caviar – as luxe as you like; caviar is popping up as a garnish on seafood, meat and pasta dishes, and being offered as the star in traditional caviar service – as at Pearl Chablis and Oyster Bar

Coastal succulents – move over microgreens: samphire, ice plant and other coastal greens are the hot garnish right now

Native ingredients – popping up on menus in a way that feels far more considered and nuanced than in the past

Stracciatella – basically the interior of the burrata that’s all over menus this side of the ditch. Who needs the skin when you can have the cream?

Checklist

GETTING THERE

Air New Zealand, Qantas, Jetstar and Emirates fly direct from Auckland to Melbourne.

DETAILS

visitvictoria.com