Why The Mouth rates Sydney over the south (yes, that’s Melbourne)

Several years of pandemics, lockdowns, and lousy government have not been kind to Moscow-on-the-Yarra, says The Mouth. The food still tastes OK, but the city has lost its shine.

People dining in Hardware Lane in Melbourne's CBD. Picture: Ian Currie.

Once upon a time, Melbourne was like Sydney’s more cultured little brother: Charming and clever, if a bit insecure, and fun to hang out with for something a little different.

Today, that little brother has fallen on hard times and may as well be sleeping on its big sibling’s sofa.

This column recently spent several days working and playing in Dan Andrews’ Melbourne, and all we can say is several years of pandemics, lockdowns, and lousy government have not been kind to Moscow-on-the-Yarra.

On our last visit five years ago, the city had a fun bohemian edge.

Now the whole place feels grimy and down at heel, with things just not quite working.

Two men score drugs in Melbourne’s CDB. Picture: David Geraghty

So few people go into work anymore that on any given weekday afternoon, footpaths in the Melbourne CBD are so devoid of life they make Clover Moore’s bike lanes look lively by comparison.

Where Sydney’s Harbour is pristine enough for seals to pop in for a visit, the brown and muddy Yarra looks like Rome’s River Tiber … around the time of Emperor Nero.

Graffiti on the Sandridge Bridge over the Yarra River Picture: Craig McIntosh

Despite (or perhaps because of) Dan Andrews’ politics of performative caring, Melbourne is also an open air museum of social dysfunction.

In just a few days wandering the city on foot we saw countless drug-affected homeless passed out on the street and, in Fitzroy, three very agitated young men in track suits talking on speakerphone trying to score.

And while Sydney certainly has its share of architectural abominations, Melbourne’s leaders (while pulling the plug on useful infrastructure) have also given developers the green light to let it rip with a Soviet-style high rise building spree.

Thank God at least some of its unique restaurant scene has survived, despite massive casualties in the industry and the need to even book bar stools at the sole survivors.

Over the course of a few nights Team Mouth enjoyed a bit of a greatest hits tour taking in old favourites like Di Stasio in the CBD (classic Florentine food in a stark concrete space that makes you think for a moment the Futurists had won) and Cutler and Co (splendid Australian fine dining, but why can’t they shuck an oyster properly?).

On a grimy bit of Flinders Lane we also found Sal’s, a genuine late night New York-style pizza by the slice joint that could have been teleported from Bleecker Street.

The problem for Melbourne is there is now great food and drink everywhere. But its old grungy point of difference has become a bug and not a feature.

— The Mouth is an anonymous critic and bon vivant who pays his own way around Sydney and beyond.