CBD
56 rooms on the Melbourne list
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Here, for
Known for, here
Melbourne coffee3 here
- Patricia Coffee Brewers — Roasts its own blend, serves it black, white or filter only, and pours the magic.
- Brother Baba Budan — Pours the Seven Seeds blend roasted by the same business in Carlton, plus a single-origin coffee of the day.
- Dukes Coffee Roasters — Roasts its own offsite and sells Regenerative Organic Certified lots whole, traceable to the farm.
Melbourne Italian3 here
- Tipo 00 — Rolls its pasta in-house and the squid-ink tagliolini is the room's calling card.
- Osteria Ilaria — Opened one shopfront from Tipo 00 with almost no pasta, leading on chargrilled octopus over nduja.
- Marameo — Kept Sarti's squid-ink spaghetti with blue swimmer crab and rolls its own pasta for the cacio e pepe.
Laneway dining2 here
- Taqueria Sin Nombre — Hides off a Chinatown laneway with almost no signage, so the room gets found slowly.
- Lee Ho Fook — Victor Liong moved the room into a Duckboard Place laneway in 2015 and lacquers Peking duck there.
Restaurants22
Flower Drum7◆
Destination · Cantonese fine dining · CBD · $$$$
booking essential
Gilbert Lau opened Flower Drum in 1975 and made it Melbourne's benchmark for Cantonese fine dining, and in the restaurant's 50th year the 2026 Good Food Guide (The Age) named it Restaurant of the Year.
Gimlet8◆
Destination · Glam European grill · CBD · $$$$
booking essential
Andrew McConnell built Gimlet inside the 1920s Cavendish House on Russell Street around a square black-and-gold marble bar, and Broadsheet reads that bar as evidence of "the team's…
Tipo 002◆
Destination · Italian / pasta · CBD · $$$
book ahead
The kitchen cooks the ox tongue for 24 hours with garlic and bay, peels it, shaves it on the salumi slicer like ham, then threads it onto skewers and flashes it on the grill before it reaches the plate.
Taqueria Sin Nombrenew
Destination · Mexican taqueria · CBD · $$
walk-in
The al pastor is turned by hand rather than on a motor, because the team decided a motorised trompo dries the pork out.
Lee Ho Fook
Destination · Modern Cantonese · CBD · $$$
book ahead
" Victor Liong opened the first one on Smith Street in 2013 to channel what he calls his creative angst, and moved it into a Duckboard Place laneway two years later.
Supernormal2◆
Solid · Pan-Asian · CBD · $$$
book ahead
Andrew McConnell put a New England lobster roll on the opening menu at 180 Flinders Lane in early 2014, and it has never come off.
Cumulus Inc.
Solid · Modern Australian · CBD · $$$
book ahead
The lamb shoulder comes out at 1.2 kilograms, slow roasted with almond and red pepper, which is a portion built for two people to argue over rather than a table of four.
ShanDong MaMa
Solid · Chinese dumplings · CBD · $$
walk-in
Asked which Melbourne dish he wishes he had invented, the chef-owner of Ho Jiak named the mackerel dumplings from a shopping arcade off Bourke Street.
Delhi Streets
Solid · Indian street food · CBD · $
book ahead
Time Out's instruction on the pani puri is a technique note: "you've got about three seconds to get it in your mouth before it all comes apart."
Hakata Gensuke Ramen
Solid · Japanese / ramen · CBD · $$
walk-in
Time Out went looking across the whole chain in 2025 and came back with a street name: "we reckon the OG on Russell St is the best."
Nana Thai
Solid · Thai mookata BBQ · CBD · $$
walk-in
Before anything goes on the grill you rub the dome with a block of pork fat, and as it renders it runs off the sides into the moat of broth that cooks everything else.
Maha Restaurant
Solid · Middle Eastern · CBD · $$$$
booking essential
The lamb shoulder has survived a group split, a refit that painted the room black, and fifteen years of its chef being on television, and The Age Good Food Guide still calls it the bedrock of the whole business.
Osteria Ilaria
Solid · Modern Italian · CBD · $$
book ahead
They opened it one shopfront from Tipo 00, the pasta bar people queue outside, and then put almost no pasta on the menu.
Rose Garden BBQ
Listed · Cantonese BBQ · CBD · $
walk-in
A chef who cooks in the city was asked where he goes for a quick lunch and named the crispy chicken ribs here.
Sederhananew
Listed · Indonesian Padang · CBD · $$
walk-in
The rendang is a twenty-spice paste reduced over nine hours, until it stops being a wet curry and turns dry and dark.
Chin Chin
Listed · Thai · CBD · $$
book ahead
Every week the kitchen picks about seven thousand bunches of coriander, Thai basil and Vietnamese mint by hand, because a machine bruises them.
HuTong
Listed · Shanghainese dumplings · CBD · $$
book ahead
HuTong has folded xiao long bao down a Market Lane laneway in Chinatown since 2008, and the soup dumplings are the reason the line forms.
Magic Mountain Saloon
Listed · Thai · CBD · $$
book ahead
A critic who gave it four stars said the kitchen refuses to soften the chilli for local palates, and meant it as praise.
Marameo
Listed · Italian (fresh pasta) · CBD · $$$
book ahead
Head chef Geoff Martin kept one dish when Marameo took over this Russell Place laneway address from Sarti in November 2019, a squid-ink spaghetti with blue swimmer crab, fresh tomato and chili.
RuYi Modern Chinese
Listed · Modern Chinese · CBD · $$$
book ahead
A ruyi is a talisman meaning "as you wish".
Ho Liao
Listed · Malaysian beer hall · CBD · $$
book ahead
Junda Khoo opened the first Ho Jiak in Sydney in 2014, then built a three-level Malaysian complex at 235 Bourke Street and put a beer hall on the top floor.
Pok Pok Junior
Listed · Thai street food · CBD · $
walk-in
It opens at eight in the morning, shuts at three on Mondays and does not trade at weekends, which tells you who it is for.
Markets1
Queen Victoria Market
Solid · Produce market · CBD · $$
walk-in
The man behind the cheese cabinet at Bill's Farm is a qualified cheese grader and a judge for the Australian Grand Dairy Awards, which is a stronger reason to walk into a 148-year-old market than the date on the sign.
Provisions2
Bijou Bottle Store
Solid · Bottle store & bar · CBD · $$
walk-in
Every bottle on the shelf can be opened and drunk in the room or carried out the door, at prices set for both.
Dan Murphy's Melbourne QV
Listed · Big-box liquor · CBD · $
walk-in
One of 283 stores run by the ASX-listed Endeavour Group, on the first floor of a shopping centre, trading on range and a promise to beat a lower price you can show them.
Craft beer3
Arbory Bar & EateryJeff ★★★★☆ 2018
Listed · Riverside bar · CBD · $$
walk-in
The bar is 150 metres long because it is built on a railway platform: the Sandridge line ran out of Flinders Street from 1854 until it was pulled up, and this deck took its place.
Cookie
Listed · Thai / beer hall · CBD · $$
book ahead
Nobody agrees how much beer is up here. The venue says up to 80 at a time, Time Out says 200, and no independent count exists.
Brick Lane Market
Listed · Craft beer hall · CBD · $$
book ahead
The Mercat Cross Hotel stood on the corner of Queen and Therry for generations and now carries a brewery's name, after a 700-square-metre renovation inside a $450 million redevelopment of the Munro site.
Pubs & cask2
Young & Jackson
Listed · Historic pub · CBD · $$
walk-in
The last time anybody published a judgment on the food or the beer here was January 2011. Everything written since has been about the painting.
The Last Jar
Listed · Irish gastropub · CBD · $$
walk-in
They churn the butter, bake the bread, cure the meat and smoke the fish on site, which is not what an Irish pub has to do.
Whisky2
One or Twojust added
Solid · Whisky & cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
walk-in
The Anchovy Toast is a cocktail. Monkey Shoulder scotch, XO sauce, chilli and sourdough, in a chilled tumbler, with a crostini of anchovy mousse balanced on top.
Whisky and Alement
Solid · Whisky bar · CBD · $$$
walk-in
About ten bottles the bar has never carried before land here every week, and the whole crew tastes them and writes notes before a single one goes on the list.
Cocktails14
Caretaker's Cottage8◆
Destination · Cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
walk-in
A 1914 caretaker's cottage behind Wesley Church seats about 25 people and ranked 19th on the World's 50 Best Bars list for 2025.
Apollo Innjust added3◆
Destination · Classic cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
book ahead
The bar takes its name from a coaching inn that stood 50 metres up the road until the wreckers came in the early 1900s.
Three Horsesnew
Destination · Cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
walk-in
The team went to La Venencia in Madrid, a hundred-year-old sherry bodega, and came home to build their version of it.
Byrdijust added
Solid · Native cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
walk-in
A Yarra Valley pear gets poached, dehydrated, rehydrated with smoke and distilled into a spirit that tastes like mezcal.
Section 8
Solid · Laneway/container bar · CBD · $
walk-in
Maz Salt took a one-year lease on a Chinatown carpark in March 2006, cut a hole in a shipping container for a bar and stacked pallets for seats. The lease is twenty years old now.
Gin Palace
Solid · Gin & martini bar · CBD · $$$
walk-in
" The martini comes to your table rather than the bar, poured cold at 90ml.
Black Kite Commune
Solid · Cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
book ahead
The house cocktail is called Raspberry, contains no raspberry, and exists because the bar manager tasted one during Beethoven's fifth symphony.
Backspace
Listed · Neighbourhood cocktail bar · CBD · $$
walk-in
Ben Cester opened it because nowhere else on that stretch would take a walk-in group with thirty minutes before a dinner booking.
Siglo
Listed · Rooftop cocktail/cigar · CBD · $$$
walk-in
Siglo is Spanish for century and it is also the name of a Cohiba, which tells you what the terrace was built around: a humidor, a view of Parliament, and a licence that runs to three in the morning.
Death & Co Melbournenew
Listed · Cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
book ahead
The Naked and Famous, equal parts mezcal, Chartreuse, Aperol and lime, was invented at the New York bar this room is a copy of, and it now turns up on cocktail lists everywhere.
Hats & Tatts CBD
Listed · Cocktail bar · CBD · $$
walk-in
A frat-themed dive bar with a CO2 carbonation rig behind the counter, used to build a negroni that arrives fizzing instead of stirred.
Saving Grace
Listed · Hidden cocktail bar · CBD · $$
walk-in
Six taps, rotated seasonally, running through Melbourne brewers like Fixation, Hop Nation and Two Bays.
Spleen Bar
Listed · Casual/comedy bar · CBD · $
walk-in
The Monday comedy room holds about sixty people, and it is where Wil Anderson, Adam Hills, Tom Gleeson and Sammy J have gone to try material that has not been tested yet.
The Hardware Club
Listed · Italian / cocktails · CBD · $$
book ahead
The room upstairs at 43 Hardware Lane was a social club for city workers in the 1920s, and it took two childhood friends from Verona to put a kitchen back in it.
Wine2
Embla13◆
Destination · Wine bar / wood-fired · CBD · $$$
walk-in
Thirteen working Melbourne chefs name this room when Broadsheet asks them where they eat, which is roughly double the next venue in the city.
Dessous
Listed · Wine bar / snacking menu · CBD · $$$
book ahead
Dessous sits in a heritage basement under Flinders Lane, its name the French for underneath, where chef Dan Sawansak tops a savory corn-custard donut with sea urchin and salmon roe.
Sake1
Bar Kaerunew
Solid · Sake bar / Japanese · CBD · $$
book ahead
The bar is a horseshoe on purpose, so the staff stand inside the curve and talk a hundred bottles of sake through with whoever is sitting there.
Coffee6
Patricia Coffee Brewers
Solid · Specialty coffee · CBD · $
walk-in
Bowen Holden left Seven Seeds in 2011 to open Patricia with Pip Heath, named it after both their grandmothers, and built it with no seats.
Brother Baba Budan
Solid · Specialty coffee · CBD · $
walk-in
The cafe takes its name from the merchant who strapped seven coffee seeds to his chest and smuggled them out of Yemen, and the roastery that supplies it took its name from the same seven seeds.
REGULARSnew
Solid · Specialty coffee · CBD · $
walk-in
The glass goes in a freezer at minus twenty first, purely so it does not crack when it goes into the second one at minus eighty-five.
Dukes Coffee Roasters
Listed · Specialty coffee · CBD · $
walk-in
The beans are Regenerative Organic Certified, which is a farming standard with an audit behind it rather than a word on a bag, and the shop sells the lots whole rather than hiding them in a house blend.
Cathedral Coffeejust added
Listed · Specialty coffee · CBD · $
walk-in
It opens at 7.30am for espresso, and three nights a week the same counter becomes a wine bar. That second half is not on the pin, and it is the better reason to go.
Umee Cafe
Listed · Vietnamese cafe · CBD · $$
walk-in
A phin is a small metal filter that sits on top of the cup and drips through in its own time, and that is what this room is built around.
Bakes & sweet1
Lune Croissanterie (Lonsdale St)new
Solid · Croissants · CBD · $$
walk-in
Kate Reid worked as an aerodynamicist for the Williams Formula 1 team before she switched to pastry, and she laminates inside a glass-walled, temperature-controlled Cube that holds the butter at one temperature so it never tears through the dough.
Elsewhere in Melbourne