We’ve become used to shopping precincts, office precincts and even, depending on our proclivities, police precincts. Now it appears that your next dinner out will be in a restaurant precinct.

Melbourne’s graffiti’d laneways have historically been the city’s restaurant precincts but, these days, every shiny new office tower has a restaurant precinct built into its base, such as 80 Collins with the likes of Society, Lillian Brasserie and Yakimono from Lucas Restaurants.

And note the ambitious new Wunderlich Lane precinct in Sydney’s Redfern, a $500 million development that has flipped what was a shady street corner into a drawcard collection, including a boutique hotel (The Eve), restaurants and bars (Lottie’s, Olympus, Island Radio, Bar Julius).

Justin Hemmes of Merivale, who pioneered precinct-building at The Ivy and Establishment in Sydney, is developing his next one in what was a multi-level car park in Melbourne’s CBD. Fair enough, but you’d think he’d make more money out of parking fees.

Like it or not, it makes sense, and not just for the property developers. For the restaurants, there’s safety in numbers. They get potential diners delivered to their door, and infrastructure such as car parking, public toilets, cinemas, hotels, sports events and playgrounds, built in.

For us? It’s also about safety in numbers. We get choice, variety and convenience. Precincts are exciting and glittery, like a street of sideshows with all the fun of the fair.

They’re also getting edgier and more niche. VisitSydney’s Prefecture 48, with its four Japanese restaurants, high-end patisserie and sultry whisky bar, and it’s a big surprise, when you wind up back on the street, to find you’re still in Australia and not Japan.

Over in Newtown, the team behind Porteno and the Continental Deli have opened three new restaurants in Australia Street right next door to each other. Flora is vegetarian, Mister Grotto is a seafood bar, and Osteria Mucca is all-out Italian. They could virtually secede from the state of NSW and still be self-sufficient.

The real power behind the trend, apart from economies of scale, is very human. We may lead more private and potentially more isolated lives than in the past, but we actually like being with others, rubbing shoulders and knocking elbows, breaking bread together. People need to eat, sure, but as Barbra Streisand sang, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.

theemptyplate@goodweekend.com.au