delicious.100: Melbourne’s best laneway restaurants
ONCE hidden and debaucherous, Melbourne’s labyrinth of laneways now beckons with eclectic eateries. Order a well-muddled cocktail and pick up a menu — these are seven of the very best laneway restaurants the city has to offer.
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ONCE hidden and debaucherous, Melbourne’s labyrinth of laneways now beckons with eclectic eateries which tantalise locals and visitors alike.
Boasting a decadent and dangerous past, the city’s laneways are now laden with vibrant and culturally diverse restaurants, gourmet pop-ups and hole-in-the-wall hideaways.
Order a well-muddled cocktail and pick up a menu. These are seven of the very best laneway restaurants which made it on to delicious.100, the only food guide to rank Victoria’s top 100 restaurants.
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BECCO
11-25 Crossley St, Melbourne
03 9663 3000
In a town where a new restaurant seems to open every other week, 21-year-old Becco still has the keys to this Italian-hearted city.
Becco’s good bones, in the form of that smart, terrazzo-floored dining room and panoramic laneway lookout, paired with flawless cooking cements its continued place above dining trends and fads.
There’s business and political types doing lunch by day, and flirty couples and a pre-theatre crowd by night enjoying the Becco brand of Italian comfort food flashed with brilliance.
Entrees are impeccable. Plump rings of chilli flour-dusted calamari are luxuriously tender to swipe through a sparky jalapeño aioli, while paper-thin beef carpaccio, loaded with rocket, capers, Parmesan and a pitch-perfect Worcestershire mayo, melts in the mouth.
Pasta is another highlight via a joyous fettuccine with bitter cime di rapa and juicy nubs of pork sausage. Italian staples also star.
Pull-apart osso buco lands on a bed of silky saffron risotto laced with bone marrow to savour with an excellent red from a wide and sensibly priced list.
Traditional desserts include a memorably wicked gooey-centred chocolate fondant with hazelnut cream.
Service is attentive yet breezy, with staff who work the room and bar with panache.
Becco is a reliable pleasure that’s classically stylish and tasty at every turn.
Must-eat dish: Fettucine with pork sausage
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: Carmine Mari
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch and dinner Mon-Fri., dinner Saturday
Instagram: @beccorestaurant
FRENCH SALOON
Level 1, 46 Hardware Lane, Melbourne
03 9600 2142
France is not so far away when you ascend some narrow stairs above Kirk’s and Kirk’s wine bar in Hardware Lane and step into the French Saloon. Here, under a pinot red ceiling, you can fully indulge your Francophile instincts: starting with ‘Saloon Caviar’ and a Lillet Blanc, or a plate of smoked tongue pimped with soured cream and onion that might better suit a Loire valley vouvray.
The wine list is predominantly French, the menu as Gallic as it comes. You could almost be in Paris as you tread the French Saloon’s unvarnished boards, settle into a bentwood chair and tear into warm baguette bread.
The illusion is enhanced by something as simple, and precisely plated, as steak frites with Roquefort butter. But you wouldn’t want to miss the half-roasted chicken here, a marvellous bird bursting with sweet, funky juice; or the darkly handsome roasted duck breast.
French Saloon’s kitchen sends it out with a luxuriously rich cassoulet where the beans are allowed to shine.
Hand-cut chips have plenty of salty snap, while a gem lettuce salad is dressed down with buttermilk.
To finish? A brittle fruit tart, perhaps. Or salted caramel madeleines hot out of the oven. “Please allow 12 minutes”, our waiter advises. We’d wait an hour, they’re that good.
Must-eat dish: Roasted duck confit with cassoulet
Cuisine: French
Chefs: Ian Curley, Todd Moses
Price $$
Bookings: Yes
Open Mon-Fri. noon-late
Instagram: @frenchsaloon
MOVIDA
1 Hosier Lane, Melbourne
03 9663 3038
Given he’s the godfather of modern tapas in Melbourne and his original MoVida on Hosier Lane is smack-bang in the middle of every camera-toting tourist’s must-see sites, you could almost understand if Frank Camorra simply dialled it in.
But almost 15 years on and MoVida is still evolving, pushing for excellence and delivering an all-class experience that’s hard to fault.
Sure, you won’t want to miss the iconic anchovy toast with tomato sorbet, but neither will you want to skip the Spanish mackerel with pine nut sorbet delivered to the table under a cloud of smoke, or the toasted crumpet with Manchego custard.
Or, indeed, the fried bread tostada topped with a thin sliver of cured pork, onion jam and a perfect quail egg. It’s tapas with one eye on tomorrow, all the while respecting the past.
Raciones up the ante and favour the brave: callos y chorizo is a brilliant stew of soft tripe, chickpeas and chorizo with lively heat, the bowl studded with thin potato crisps standing to attention; while plankton lends a vibrant seaweed vibe to a soupy rice filled with octopus tentacles and meaty clams.
Spanish wines are served by switched on staff who know the drill and execute it effortlessly, while the room, sporting the patina of a million contented sighs, remains as comfortable as ever.
Don’t let the tourists have all the fun. MoVida is perennially high-quality Spanish from the hands of an industry don.
Must eat dish: Arroz Caldoszo (Catalan wet rice)
Cuisine: Spanish
Chefs: Frank Camorra, Scott Stevenson
Price: $$
Bookings: yes
Open: Lunch and dinner daily
Instagram @movidabdt
PASTUSO
19 ACDC Lane, Melbourne
03 9662 4556
This is a Peruvian party you definitely want in on.
Pastuso — named after Paddington Bear, who was originally an orphan bear from Lima before he was sent to England — has lost none of its energy and fun as it helps diners unlock the wonders of Peruvian cuisine, thanks to Peruvian-born head Chef Alejandro Saravia.
It’d be rude not to kick off with a pisco sour as you cruise the menu divided into ceviche, street food and hearty main courses cooked over fire.
Charred Queensland king prawns marinated in coriander oil or red snapper cured in lemon juice with sweet potato fly the flag for stunning ceviche, while a zingy salad of endive, pickle and apple cider vinegar sauce is the perfect foil for sweet and tender chunks of alpaca.
The parilla (grill) is pressed into service on the larger dishes, perhaps a whole baby barramundi, a half chook, or several cuts of aged grass-fed Gippsland beef.
Eye fillet was cooked to textbook medium rare, rested and sliced, and paired well with a side salad of red butter lettuce with candied hazelnuts.
The wine list keeps to the region, as do desserts, including a Peruvian panna cotta, all wobbly and tasting of dark toffee, with cinnamon sponge.
Add cheeky but charming service, a hip laneway address and a buzzy room with an open kitchen, and Pastuso’s colourful take on Peru is your boarding pass to good times.
Must-eat dish: Camorones (prawn ceviche with coriander oil)
Cuisine: Peruvian
Chef: Alejandro Saravia
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch and dinner daily
Instagram: @pastusorestaurant
LEE HO FOOK
11-15 Duckboard Pl, Melbourne
03 9077 6261
Snack early, snack often at the laneway-cool Lee Ho Fook.
New-wave Chinese is the order of the day here, with killer cocktails and eavesdroppingly close tables upping the fun in the upstairs warehouse-style dining room.
But back to those snacks. Ruffles of black fungus come al dente and swimming in a puckeringly sharp black vinegar, while creamy Harvey Bay scallops are served in shells with cubes of tofu and a lick of brown butter.
Chopstick through a bowl of chicken crackling — a rubble of puffed skin, garlic and lip-tingling chilli — and regret nothing. Ditto the eggplant, crisscrossed batons in a brittle fried shell of sweet tapioca batter, balanced by a bracing spiced red vinegar.
A deconstructed kohlrabi salad freshens things up, as does white-cut chicken topped with fennel shavings and a douse of chilli oil. Bigger dishes might swing to roast duck with a star anise and cinnamon sauce, or fried rice studded with blue swimmer crab and scallops in a house-made XO sauce.
This is no cheap and cheerful canteen (especially once you factor in booze) but chef Victor Lion’s unapologetic cooking prods the boundaries of tradition for memorable Chinese food not as you know it.
Must-eat dish: Crispy eggplant
Cuisine: Chinese
Chef: Victor Liong
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Mon-Fri.; dinner Mon-Sun
Instragram: @leehofook
TONKA
20 Duckboard Pl, Melbourne
03 9650 3155
Indian food given a thoroughly modern Melbourne stamp is yours for the taking at Adam D’Sylva’s sleek celebration of the subcontinent. The elegant dining room with its mesh-cloud installation transports you a world away from the grungy Melbourne laneway outside.
Food-wise, tradition is respected — that tandoor oven pumps juicy lamb cutlets and a mean pork tikka — but is not slavishly adhered to.
Calamari with subtle five spice, flanked by celery pickled onion sits on a bed of squid ink boondi, a crispy popped snack elevated with sepia. Piped pools of avocado raita add vibrancy and freshness.
Naan is charred and puffy, and sides are certainly no afterthought. Fried cauliflower heady with garam masala salt, fenugreek and yoghurt dressing commands the same attention as the Duck korma with apple and vanilla-spiced beetroot.
Butter chicken fails to excite, but a strong dessert game brings us home strong with the wind of a pretty bombe Alaska with green apple and bergamot in our sails.
Staff are attentive, informed and friendly, tending to first timers as much as rusted-on regulars with punchy cocktails and a European-leaning wine list.
Must-eat dish: Five-spice calamari
Cuisine: Indian
Chefs: Adam D’Sylva, Hendri Budiman
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch & dinner Mon-Sat
Instragram: @tonkarestaurant
LUCY LIU
23 Oliver Lane, Melbourne
03 9639 5777
Lucy Liu loiters in a bluestone alley, her name glowing in pink neon.
From the exterior, this Asian eating and drinking house has a nightclub vibe. But once inside, Lucy’s come-on is brilliant pan-Asian fare with a cracking drinks list, served with laid-back style in a buzzy canteen space.
Pale timber meets polished terrazzo, booth seating nudges up to communal tables, and pumping beats keep the chatter level high.
Order a well-muddled cocktail to get you going or one of the many aromatic varietals that suit Lucy’s spirited food. Then tuck into the ‘small bites and tastes’.
The kingfish sashimi, scattered with toasted coconut and drenched with lime, could well be the best in town; while the soft-shell pancake roll, amped up with spicy hoi sin sauce, delivers joy in every mouthful.
The Korean-style crispy pork hock is Lucy’s signature dish for good reason. You can hear the snap of the tanned crust as you drive a knife through it, revealing lovely pale porky meat inside ready for folding into pliable Peking duck-style pancakes.
Still, the kitchen here would love you to try their Cantonese steamed blue cod with ginger, or crispy fried Sichuan duck with a garland of watercress.
Pricey? Nah. Flexible? You bet. So many reasons to love Lucy.
Must eat dish: Korean-style crispy pork hock
Cuisine: Modern Asian
Chefs: Michael Lambie, Zac Cribbes
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch and dinner daily
Instagram: @lucyliu_melbourne
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