In prime position on a Rathdowne Street corner, the double-decker site – most recently home to Latin restaurant La Tonada – has been given a charming new lease on life.

Owner Tash Sorensen, who previously worked at Smith St Bistrot and Bar Margaux, recruited her father, a builder, to help make her first restaurant, Malin, stand out in a pocket flush with similarly Eurocentric wine bars.

Moving the entrance to a sconce-flanked doorway on Curtain Street added intimacy, while restoring the original staircase (where a private dining room will soon await) made it a statement piece. Likewise: calacatta marble tables from Crown’s now-closed Rosetta.

Despite the polish, Sorensen is determined to keep the bar “neighbourhood-orientated”. “We opened quietly ... and did an old-school letterbox drop to nearby residents.”

Head chef Clement Pilatre is French, but influences from his homeland are more evident in technique than in specific dishes. “The menu doesn’t scream ‘French’,” says Sorensen.

One snack marries two favourites: oysters and beef tartare. Both are finely diced, then served in the mollusc’s shell beneath an airy champagne sabayon sauce and a daub of caviar. There’s also a rum-spiked mashed potato – with notes of vanilla and coconut – that Sorensen says channels the cuisine of the French-colonised island of Reunion.

The drinks list also reps France, with imported pastis, select Burgundy and Loire Valley bottles, and a pinot blanc-auxerrois blend from Alsace winemaker Jintaro Yura. But it’s locally minded too, featuring young-gun SA winemaker Lauren Langfield.

Open Wed-Fri 6-10pm; Sat noon-10pm; Sun noon-5pm

687 Rathdowne Street, Carlton North, malinmelbourne.com

—Tomas Telegramma

Find two-hander fish burgers and an epic beer garden at this revived Geelong pub

A longstanding watering hole outside Geelong has been restored to its gold rush glory, with a classic pub look inside, a fresh coat of paint on the facade, and a menu big on comfort.

The team behind Geelong venues Barwon Edge, Felix and Alma has taken over the Batesford Hotel, on the banks of the Moorabool River.

Over the past 165 years, the pub has been called everything from the Derwent to the Dog Rocks Hotel. Its new chapter is all about embracing that history while adding some fresh spins.

Prawn cocktail, pork chop with apple and cabbage slaw, and oysters Kilpatrick are some of the more retro items on the menu, written by John Carter, chef at Felix. Monster-sized fish burgers, chicken parmas and three cuts of steak are also in the mix. But there’s also roasted tomato and ’nduja risotto, and veg burgers made with lion’s mane mushroom, known for its meaty chew.

Deep-green carpets, tan banquettes and olive-green wainscoting are part of the cosy design inside, which covers dining spaces and a function area the team is pitching for weddings and other events.

In summer, the wide and leafy beer garden dotted with picnic tables will be the best seat in town.

Open Wed-Thu 5pm-11pm, Fri-Sun noon-11pm from September 28.

700 Ballarat Road, Batesford, 0411 143 155, thebatesfordhotel.com.au

—Gail Thomas

Go from breakfast birria to mole Old Fashioneds

Seven years spent working in Mexico City – including at internationally regarded fine diner Quintonil – led Australian chef Ross McCombe to his latest gig, heading up the kitchen at Southbank’s new Hacienda Cocina Mexicana, right on the Yarra River.

McCombe says the menu is fairly a traditional Mexican one, but not entirely.

One non-negotiable was making tortillas in-house, using maize that has undergone the ancient process of nixtamalisation, which involves soaking dried corn kernels in an alkaline solution.

They’re served as-is, alongside all Hacienda’s larger dishes – such as Western Plains pork with a complex mole sauce, made here with peanut, and apple pico de gallo – but also in more tongue-in-cheek forms. A tostada-esque snack called “Old El Paso” riffs on the Tex-Mex brand’s hard-shell tacos: Hacienda’s house-made version is filled with tuna tartare, and smoked tomato and chipotle foam.

For early birds, a dedicated Mexican-inspired breakfast menu (with coffee) is available from 7am. Find pies stuffed with cochinita pibil, or Yucatan-style pork, and sausage rolls spiced with burnt habanero paste and fermented tomato ketchup. And birria comes as a stew – not the more recently popularised taco – with a grilled cheese sandwich.

“[Mexico City] is one of the best cities in the world for bars,” says McCombe, who’s recruited consultant bar manager Ramon Tovar – co-owner of Mexico City bars Long Story Short and Nardo Cocktail Club – to shake up Hacienda’s cocktail program.

The sweet cashew mole used in McCombe’s clay-baked beetroot dish is infused with whisky to make the Old Fashioned new again, and house-brewed tepache, a Mexican drink made with fermented pineapple peels, stars in the extra-refreshing gin sour.

Owned and operated by Highgate One Group (Richmond’s Ella, Hawthorn’s Osteria 20), Hacienda has taken over the former Tutto Bene site at Southgate, now moodier with splashes of marble and timber, and neon-framed Mexican sculptures. And there are plans to add a “big old oyster and ceviche bar” on the balcony, like Mexico City seafood hotspot La Docena.

Open daily 7am-late

M28, 3 Southgate Avenue, Southbank, haciendamelbourne.com.au

—Tomas Telegramma