The best restaurants in Melbourne

Clinton McIver made waves at Vue de monde before putting his flair on the unlikely surrounds of Clayton Bowls Club, but Amaru in Armadale is where his cooking found its truest form. The intimate 34-seat room is all dark timber salvaged from a Melbourne brick factory, polished concrete, and a quiet confidence that matches the degustation menu. Built around native Australian ingredients and seasonal produce, the 12 to 13-course menu shifts with availability and McIver’s instincts. Past dishes have moved from wallaby tail dumplings with saltbush butter to scallop with garlic scapes, marrow and mizuna. The non-alcoholic pairing is genuinely worth adding on, but a 700-bottle cellar is there for those who want it. Amaru holds three hats and appears on the World’s 50 Best Discovery list.

Ben Shewry took over a quiet suburban bistro in Ripponlea in 2005 and spent the years that followed building one of the most original restaurants in the world. The turning point came when he began cooking with the wild edibles of his New Zealand coastal childhood, and native Australian ingredients became the foundation rather than the flourish. That approach has made Attica a regular fixture on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and a top-ranked restaurant in Australia. The converted single-storey building is deliberately relaxed with eclectic art and a service team that invites questions about every course. Western Australian marron nested in heirloom tomatoes with kutjera is the kind of dish the menu might offer. A 600-plus bottle cellar skews towards rare Australian producers; the non-alcoholic pairings are serious enough to match them.

Three decades of collected antiques line the room at this northern Italian restaurant in Melbourne’s CBD, giving it the feeling of a private world you’ve stumbled into by luck. Chef and owner Caterina Borsato cooks in regional tradition, turning out baccala mantecato, vitello tonnato and tortelli d’anatra with the kind of unfussy conviction that comes from genuine roots in the food. The wine list exceeds 600 bottles and tilts decisively toward Italy with a serious amaro selection alongside it—the Grappino Stellato is poured by the glass here, a rarity in Melbourne.

Hannah Green’s neighbourhood restaurant in Brunswick East has accumulated some of Melbourne’s most serious critical recognition since opening in 2017, and head chef Lorcán Kan’s cooking is the reason. His menu reflects the city’s cultural breadth, moving from golden tofu with corn and kohlrabi to a chilli oil parfait served with pomelo, lychee, and lime leaf sorbet. Sommelier Ashley Boburka oversees a 250-bottle list with a strong focus on Victorian and Australian producers. The Lime Leaf Margarita is reason enough to linger after dinner.

Directly opposite Parliament House, The European has been a fixture of Melbourne’s formal dining landscape for more than two decades. Executive chef Peter Sheldon runs a kitchen that is, by his own declaration, a foam-free zone, with its roots firmly in the rural traditions of France, Italy, and Spain. Ox tongue, steak tartare, and other nose-to-tail classics carry the menu, backed by a wine list that exceeds 1,000 bottles. Josh Brisbane and Con Christopoulos’s flagship venue is unapologetically old world in spirit, and all the more reliable for it.

A 16-seat kaiseki counter below a Bourke Street laneway, Ishizuka operates with the quiet authority of a place that has nothing left to prove. Executive chef Katsuji Yoshino runs a seasonal degustation that lets the market set the agenda with courses arriving on custom Kyoto ceramics in a spare room that matches the precision of the kitchen. Grilled saikyo-miso black cod is a marker of the style: considered, technically exact, and built on produce. Sake, Australian wine, and non-alcoholic juice pairings are all available. Ishizuka is a serious omakase experience that rewards you if you come without expectations.

What started as a winter pop-up has settled into a permanent fixture upstairs at the storied Melbourne Supper Club, and Kafeneion is better for the permanence. The kitchen draws on Greek village tradition to produce dishes like slow-cooked lamb with potatoes and wild oregano, alongside the orange filo cake known as portokalopita. A mastiha sour or a pour of tsipouro makes a natural companion. The room is romantic and convivial in the way that places with thoughtful service tend to be, whether you’re there for a long dinner or an impromptu nightcap.

Victor Liong trained at Marque under Mark Best before opening this restaurant in 2013, and the cooking bears both the rigour of that background and the full breadth of his Chinese-Australian heritage. Crispy eggplant in spiced red vinegar and prawn toast finished with sea urchin are the kinds of dishes that make the menu a destination in itself. The all-Australian wine list is supplemented by a short selection of Chinese wines, and the moody, close-set dining room turns dinner into an occasion without requiring formal effort. Lee Ho Fook has a loyal following, and deservedly so.

Frank Camorra opened MoVida Original in a Melbourne laneway in 2003, and the anchoa, a hand-filleted Cantabrian anchovy on crouton with smoked tomato sorbet, has been on the menu ever since. That dish alone has defined a generation of thinking about Spanish bar food in this city. Pedro Ximénez braised beef cheek and Kane Vokoun’s beef tartare on almond and horseradish cracker round out a menu built for sharing. Start with vermut over ice, and let the meal take its time from there.

Stephen Nairn worked alongside Shannon Bennett at Vue de monde and NYC’s Eleven Madison Park before opening Omnia in South Yarra, and the cooking carries that pedigree without the formality. The kitchen centres on European bistro food with a signature dry-aged duck that warrants a return visit and a liquid-centre cheesecake that rounds out the meal. The wine list is built with equivalent care, running from a 2002 Yarra Yering Dry Red No. 1 poured by the glass to a 1979 Laubade Cask Strength Armagnac. A lively open kitchen anchors a room that manages to feel like occasion dining without any of the stiffness.

The wine comes first at Carlton Wine Room on Faraday Street, and that philosophy, championed by co-owners Travis Howe and Andrew Joy, has earned this 19th-century corner building consistent critical praise. The kitchen builds a seasonal modern Australian menu designed to meet it: anchovy toast and Sher Wagyu steak are the reliable orders. The list runs to 100 bottles, with a reserve collection behind it, and the team’s ability to navigate both with equal ease is half the pleasure. Relaxed without feeling casual, it is the kind of room that makes a Tuesday feel like a weekend.

Chef Mark Hannell and co-owner Rebecca Baker met working at Ottolenghi’s Nopi in London, and the cooking at Reed House reflects that shared formation: modern Australian in technique and Australian produce with a clear British accent running through it. Ramen scotch eggs with mushroom ketchup and Welsh rarebit crumpets make the case early; roast chicken with saltbush za’atar and bread sauce completes it. The drinks list, compiled by Baker with her background at The Everleigh and Bar Americano, leans on small wine producers and seasonally changing cocktails, including the Builders Tea Punch. Housed in the mid-1800s Manse Building in the CBD, the venue’s two intimate dining rooms and heated courtyard make eating here a singular pleasure.

Ross Magnaye and Shane Stafford opened Serai in a laneway off Little Bourke Street with a wood-fired grill at its centre, and the smoke that comes with it runs through nearly everything. Gordon Ramsay, who visited while filming in the city, called the sisig taco the best dish he ate that year. The menu moves between a raw bar and large fire-cooked plates with dishes like kangaroo kinilaw with wood-roast bone marrow and leche flan smoked over charcoal and finished with passionfruit. Natural wines and Filipino cocktails made with ube, pandan, and calamansi keep pace with the food. Book the chef’s table for the full experience.

Head chefs and co-owners Francesco Rota and Ferdinando Napoli have built one of Melbourne’s most reliably enjoyable dinner destinations in this Emilia-Romagna-focused restaurant in the CBD. The menu shifts with the seasons, but gnocco fritto with Wagyu bresaola, stracciatella, and 15-year aged balsamic is a constant worth seeking out. The wine list covers Italy’s regions with real breadth and treats Lambrusco with the seriousness it deserves. Co-owners Van Nguyen and Matteo Neviani run a room that is buzzy but never frantic, the kind where a quick dinner becomes midnight before you notice.

Coskun Uysal opened this Balaclava restaurant with a clear point of view: that Turkish cooking is deep and has enough regional variation to carry a full degustation format. The seven-course Taste of Tulum moves through the country’s distinct culinary traditions with dishes like tavuk göğsü, a classical Ottoman chicken and milk pudding. Around 70% of the wine list is built from Turkish varieties, giving the list a coherence that matches the kitchen’s focus. The room is warm and the pacing generous, and the meal tends to leave you wanting to come back to experience more of Turkish cooking.

Few restaurants in Australia carry the kind of long-term producer relationships that Vue de monde has built over decades, and the tasting menu is where those relationships show. Executive chef Hugh Allen and head chef Chris Marshall use classic French technique as the foundation, but the menu reads as unmistakably Australian. Blackmore Wagyu has appeared on it for over 15 years, and the chocolate soufflé has closed every meal since opening. The wine programme holds exceptional back vintages, and a tea pairing is available for non-drinkers. Three hats and a room dressed in kangaroo leather and local stone, looking out across the city, make this one of the most complete dining experiences Melbourne has to offer.

Reached by a glass-walled lift, this subterranean South Yarra restaurant unfolds beneath six-metre concrete walls, a cascading chandelier, and a mezzanine omakase bar that is worth the visit on its own. Culinary director Stephen Nairn’s menu moves freely between Japanese and Asian traditions with the prawn toast arriving atop youtiao, a Chinese doughnut, and finished with chilli amazu. The ume negroni is the standout cocktail, sitting alongside a sake list that is among the best in the city.

Hugh Allen was 23 when he became executive chef of Vue de monde, and 30 when he opened Yiaga inside a restored 1908 pavilion in East Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens. The 44-seat restaurant, designed by architect John Wardle with 13,000 hand-made terracotta tiles lining its walls and floor-to-ceiling glass looking out onto the elms, earned three hats after it opened. The 14-course tasting menu is built around Australian farmers, fishers, and makers. A wine list skews 70% local and the beverage pairing might open with a barrel-aged mandarin saison brewed with local legends La Sirène.