One of the first strips to star in Good Food’s Eat Streets series was High Street, Thornbury – where Colombian-style hotdogs coexist alongside old- and new-school Greek spots, and plant-based powerhouses. But a 300-metre stretch on the Thornbury-Preston border is further upping the ante, with five new venues to get excited about.

Luther’s Scoops

Four years since the birth of Brunswick ice-creamery Luther’s Scoops, “It just keeps getting busier and busier,” says owner Christian Williams, a chef who’s worked at Michelin-starred restaurants like The Fat Duck and The Clove Club in the UK.

To help quell the queues at his poky Blyth Street original, Williams scooped up a second site in Thornbury – with ice-cream in its DNA. It was formerly Kenny Lover, which shut recently, following the closure of Icecream Social, further up High Street.

Luther’s has picked up where they left off, with a less eye-poppingly orange fit-out than Kenny Lover, but with the same retro tiles and its couch reupholstered in green.

Williams and his team are serving all the flavours that made Luther’s famous, from butterscotch ripple to Earl Grey-chocolate. But there are also regular specials like pistachio-creme fraiche, and “sneaky collabs” like a sourdough ice-cream they’re making with neighbouring bakery All Are Welcome. Production happens at a commercial kitchen in Reservoir, which churns out 300 litres a day, six days a week.

Beyond ice-cream, the new shop also sells triple-choc cookies, freshly baked throughout the day. And, soon, the sought-after Luther’s pies with fillings such as sticky-date custard.

Open Mon-Thu 1pm-10pm; Fri 1pm-10.30pm; Sat noon-10.30pm; Sun noon-10pm

796 High Street, Thornbury, luthers.com.au ]

Isme

Do you remember Isme, the short-lived Lebanese eatery in the backstreets of Fitzroy?

Young-gun owner Joseph Rahme set up shop opposite Napier Quarter in 2021, but he ultimately closed it in 2022 because of complications related to COVID and the building.

Two years later, Rahme has transplanted Isme to the base of a schmick Thornbury apartment building, next to his focaccia bar, Juju’s Deli (now also in South Melbourne).

“Old-school downtown Beirut” was the design brief for the curved corner site, Rahme says, so it’s all raw materials like sand-coloured bricks. And there’s a roaring open fire pit, with flame-licked items dominating the Lebanese and Middle Eastern dishes.

Where Rahme’s mum was in the kitchen at Isme 1.0, sharing her home cooking with Fitzroy, she’s not at Isme 2.0, letting the chefs exercise a touch more creative freedom.

Lebanese mountain bread is cooked to order. Plump chargrilled prawns crown the fatteh, on a bed of labneh and fried-pita shards. And among the centrepiece proteins is a half-chicken marinated in the Lebanese tawook style. “If you go for a ‘feed me’ ... there’s no chance you’ll leave hungry,” says Rahme. “In our culture, that doesn’t happen.”

Open Thu-Mon 5.30pm-10.30pm

752 High Street, Thornbury, ismerestaurant.com.au

Sandro

For Umberto Espresso Bar’s Marco Finanzio, his pasta shop Pastificio Sandro (which moonlighted as Italian restaurant Prova) was “a passion project I was proud of”.

But in the face of a retail downturn, business wasn’t booming. And he had to make a change, dumping the deli fridges and flipping the year-old site into a pasta and wine bar just called Sandro. “Being guided by what you want to do ... is not viable in this environment any more,” he says, though you can still click and collect handmade pasta.

Finanzio has replaced Prova’s rigid set menu with a more casual a la carte offering that still retains a few favourites – like charry mortadella skewers – and three rotating pastas. But it’s not strictly Italian: smoked baba ghanoush comes with crudites and crisp flatbread, and there’s a sumac-spiced pavlova with strawberries and creme fraiche.

Now a neighbourhood bar that locals can use as they like, Sandro is as much a place to flit in for a quick Campari soda and a snack as it is to settle in for a few hours, perhaps with bottle of Alberto Oggero’s appropriately named Sandro nebbiolo, from Piedmont.

Open Wed-Sat 5pm-late

822 High Street, Thornbury, instagram.com/pastificio_sandro

Coming soon

The couple behind Skinny’s, Preston’s zhushed-up milk bar, is shifting gears to open a wine bar, Peaches (901 High Street, Thornbury), early next year. The “goth older sister” to Skinny’s will be more refined, dark and moody, and with Eurocentric small plates.

But set to open in late November, Casa Sicilia Caffe (835 High Street, Thornbury) will bring a slice of Sicily to Thornbury, serving the quintessential breakfast of brioche and granita, as well as four different types of arancini (rice balls), a staple of Sicilian cuisine.