Anchovy

The fish sauce on the oysters is made in house from 800 kilograms of anchovies caught in Port Phillip Bay.

Why go

Thi Le and Jia-Yen Lee have run this address since 2015, and The Age's Good Food Guide named Le its Chef of the Year for 2026 (Melbourne Food and Wine Festival). The kitchen works from a stated position rather than a cuisine label. Viet Kieu means a Vietnamese person naturalised in Australia, and the menu reads that way: Vietnamese technique drawn from 54 ethnic groups and regional traditions, cooked with Australian produce and seasons (Anchovy). Broadsheet's flat claim is that "nowhere else in Australia presents Vietnamese cuisine quite like Anchovy" (Broadsheet). The room closed for two years and traded as Jeow, a Lao kitchen, before coming back under its own name in July 2024. There are 24 seats.

Order this / avoid

Order: the fried betel leaf with prawn and calamari and the cashew and galangal dip. Duck and liver laap with toasted rice and shiso. The whole flounder with shrimp paste and pork fat relish if there are two of you. Oysters, for the house fish sauce.
Avoid: Sunday through Wednesday, when it does not open, and any lunch that is not Friday. A big group will not fit.

What locals & experts say

Jacqui Challinor, executive chef of Nomad Melbourne, Reine and La Rue, asked which Melbourne venue is underrated, named this room under the Jeow banner it carried at the time: "There's not enough noise made about Jeow. Thi [Le]'s food is so damn good. Big, bold and interesting flavours, and, in case you haven't picked up on the common theme here, cooked with lots of love." In the same interview she calls Le "one of the great food minds in the country". ref
The Age Good Food Guide Awards, 2026 edition, announced 27 October 2025: Chef of the Year, Thi Le. The same ceremony gave Restaurant of the Year to Flower Drum and New Restaurant of the Year to Zareh, both of which are on this list. ref
Broadsheet's Hot List files it as an icon with notable service and as a neighbourhood favourite, and updated the entry on 27 April 2026. ref
Thi Le does not appear here as a source. She is on the SOURCES.md roster of Melbourne chefs, which makes her a primary about her own venues only, so the own-venue rule keeps her out of this entry's endorsements. She also names nobody in the 74-pick Melbourne chef corpus, so there is no pick of hers to borrow from either.

Good to know

Where: 338 Bridge Road, Richmond. The banh mi shop next door, Ca Com, is theirs too.
Timing: dinner Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 5.30pm. Lunch Friday only, from midday. Closed Sunday through Wednesday.
Booking: encouraged, and the venue says walk-ins are always welcome. With 24 seats, book.
History: open since 2015, closed for two years, traded as the Lao kitchen Jeow in between, back as Anchovy since July 2024.
Diet: no dietary or allergen statement is published, so nothing is flagged.
Food safety: Victoria publishes no venue hygiene ratings. Safe Food Victoria keeps a register of convictions under section 53D of the Food Act 1984, and a conviction sits on it for twelve months. The 21 July 2026 register carries fifteen entries and Anchovy is not one of them. ref

Jeff's take (his words)

Nothing here is Jeff's. Melbourne carries no raw saved-places export in this repo, so there is no Note column behind a jeff_note and the field stays empty rather than composed.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Thi Le makes her own fish sauce from 800 kilograms of anchovies caught in Port Phillip Bay, which is a two-year commitment to one ingredient that most kitchens would just buy. The Age's Good Food Guide named her Chef of the Year for 2026. The cooking works the Viet Kieu position deliberately, Vietnamese technique across 54 ethnic groups and regional traditions, run through Australian produce and seasons, which is a cultural bridge argued rather than decorated. Jacqui Challinor, who runs three kitchens for Nomad, calls the food 'so damn good. Big, bold and interesting flavours', and says not enough noise is made about it. The room seats 24 and opens three nights and one lunch a week, so this is a plan rather than a drop-in. It holds at should-visit rather than higher because no critic we can reach has assessed the reopened kitchen, and one industry vote is thin support for the top rung when the city's most-named room carries thirteen.