Anchovy
The kitchen makes the fish sauce on the oysters in house, from 800 kilograms of anchovies out of 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 Leone of the great food minds in the country
.4 - 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.3
- Broadsheet's Hot List files it as an icon with notable service and as a neighbourhood favourite, and updated the entry on 27 April 2026.2
- Thi Le does not appear here as a source. She is on our 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 ratings, only Safe Food Victoria's register of convictions under s.53D of the Food Act 1984, and this venue is not on it.5
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: Best new chef 2026
Verdict
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.