Where to eat and drink in Melbourne
The city’s top new venues for drinking and dining include a brewery housed in the notorious Pentridge Prison.
Melbourne has always been prized for the distinctive character of its neighbourhoods. Thanks to its CBD laneways, vibrant music scene and rusted-on loyalties to local pubs that are as strong as ties to footy teams, the city’s culture keeps percolating. Entrepreneurs have watched it awaken from its pandemic slumber and are betting on a fresh start. New openings are reinvigorating each neighbourhood’s flavour, with creative pub fare, craft cocktails, hipster retrofits, each as Melburnian as the clang of a tram. The revival is enticing for locals and travellers.
Yarra Botanica
Melbourne has an abundance of cosy wine bars, but the city’s newest on-river concept has instant outdoor appeal. Yarra Botanica’s two-level floating pontoon bar and eatery is festooned with native flora hanging from a massive industrial trellis and flower beds framing the skyline. Friends cluster around shaded tables that feel breezy and boatlike, tackling grazing platters by the metre and laughing over cool-climate wine as pale as straw. A tapas-style menu emphasises fresh Victorian produce and convivial sharing. Hand-stretched burrata, rising above a ring of succulent tri-colour tomato wedges, is superbly simple. Murray cod is saltbush cured and sprinkled with edible flowers, or crumbed as scrumptious croquettes, topped by tender fish slices and a crispy lemon myrtle leaf. This venue is both of the city and a retreat from it.
Amphlett House
Amphlett House brings experimental Australiana cocktails and comfort cuisine to the heart of the theatre district. On opening night, retro funk keeps the energy humming in this Brit pub-meets-1980s cocoon, where views to Amphlett Lane’s 19th-century brickwork adds to the inner-city atmosphere. Carnivores can drill down with approachable offal dishes: tender, lightly seared ox tongue; beef heart with creamed spinach; bone marrow on the thickest, crunchiest toast heaped with parsley. The wine range showcases small makers, with Victorian-only beers on tap. Beautifully crafted cocktails playfully garnished with gummy bears are worth the trip alone while libations such as the wattleseed negroni or eucalyptus-smoked margarita deliver an Aussie twist. Theatre diners can pop in for a pre-show drink and dessert. A scorched tart with fresh raspberries and cream as tangy as Greek yoghurt pairs nicely with a finger lime daiquiri.
Brewdog Brewery
The extraordinary history of Pentridge Prison casts a dark shadow over the first Melbourne offering of Scottish craft-beer brand Brewdog. For 150 years, criminals passed through tower gates under the doleful stare of armed guards. After a $1bn, seven-year restoration, the site has been transformed into a mixed-use development with shops and a cinema, turbocharging the gentrification of the inner north. Cross the grassy piazza, where prisoners once exercised, to have a cold one within the once intimidating bluestone walls of the former E Division building. A 26-tap shipping-container bar in the sprawling beer garden serves the pale ales Brewdog is known for, alongside lagers, stouts, sours and locally exclusive brews such as the RSL-inspired Shandy Shack (lemonade and lager) and the venue’s own E Division pale ale. Inside, the siege architecture framing the dining spaces is a foil to the contemporary fun of kimchi wings, pub classics (50 per cent vegan) and a phalanx of pinball machines.
M Club and M Lounge
Melbourne Marriott’s blue ribbon Exhibition St locale overlooking Her Majesty’s Theatre is already a great staycation choice for “urbanauts”, and the lobby’s $1m new look is a call to linger longer. The expansive M Bar is a plush, residential-style retreat in charcoal with furnishings to sink into and plenty of meet-and-greet space. The adjoining private executive lounge, M Club, is a homey sanctuary in tone-on-tone greys, with timber and marble textures. Office hardware is jazzed up by curated gin flights and 40 heritage whiskies, appealing to travellers who work on the run. There’s complimentary breakfast, all-day grazing and new biographies in the boutique library. Early evening cocktails such as The Exhibitionist and Lonsdale Lover are created by nearby distiller Little Lon; follow them up with bistro classics such as ribs, gnocchi and jumbo prawns at on-site The Essence. M Club, already launched in Amsterdam, Zurich and Houston, is available to King Suite customers and Marriott members.
Galok
This new favourite on buzzy Chapel St gives diners what owner Lei Zheng calls a “glimpse” of varying Asian culinary traditions, including Thai, Japanese and Korean. The spices of melt-in-the-mouth Xinjiang-style lamb riblets are unmistakably Sichuan but they are pressure-cooked then fried using a French technique; Singaporean-style chilli soft-shell crab is enjoyed with Chinese fried bao dumplings. Simple pleasures such as cracking through crispy roast bone marrow to the gooey goodness underneath, and scooping clouds of cracker into fragrant nyonya beef rendang, are complemented by theatrical Asian-inspired cocktails, prepared with the help of a gleaming copper 100-litre still. The Floral Garden Sour is perfume in a glass; Earl Grey Tea balances the sweetness of jasmine-infused Crème de Violette. Smoke is trapped in the bubble dome of the rum-based Jungle Bird of Penang, or mists out of a box as Thai daiquiris, reimagined with tamarind and galangal, are served.
Loti
Chef Elijah Holland’s new venture is on The Esplanade in St Kilda, among the palms, old-school charm of Middle European 1950s cake shops and the clickety-clack of Luna Park’s retro rollercoaster. It’s a seaside rendezvous in the St Moritz complex, where the late cricketing legend Shane Warne had his penthouse. Holland’s menu celebrates coastal and mountain foraged wildness with lemon-scented tea tree, sea lettuce and beach spinach. Oysters are served amid bursts of briny coastal succulents and mini corked jars of dressing; smoked yellowfin tuna tartare fills cornettos perched in shells; wide ribbons of pasta with wavy edges recall octopus tentacles. As the afternoon unfolds over Inkwell’s fruity 2021 McLaren Vale grenache mataro – organic and hand-picked – the people-watching just gets better.
AC Marriott Southbank
Melbourne’s formerly industrial CBD outskirt is a symbol of urban renewal, and now has a high-rise hotel. With the sweep of the cityscape below, the AC Marriott’s 72sq m Signature Suite is the ultimate penthouse pad. A separate living room features light-flooded dining and desk space, replete with retro Crosley record player. Check-in is high spirited, with a G & T cart on arrival, while an infinity pool is well above the urban thrum. At Spanish restaurant Sorolla, fluffy cauliflower empanadas drizzled with chimichurri, and burnt-orange custard Crema Catalana, come with Southbank’s best views. Signature Suite from $850 a night.