Dainty Sichuan Food

You can pre-order a lobster mapo tofu, which is not something the menu tells you.

Why go

Sofia Levin, who writes about food and judges MasterChef Australia, calls the South Yarra room "some of the better Sichuan food in the country" and names the pre-order list as part of the reason (Broadsheet). The tables have hotplates set into them for Chongqing hot pot (Broadsheet). The Chongqing chicken comes as fried chicken under a mountain of dried chilli, and the kitchen puts its own mapo tofu forward as the house dish (Dainty on Toorak). It started in Collingwood, moved to Corrs Lane, and outgrew that too before landing on Toorak Road. It is BYO, which for a room in this price band changes what an evening costs.

Order this / avoid

• Order: mapo tofu, and the lobster version if you called ahead. Chongqing chicken. Ants climbing trees. The Sichuan pork belly with chillies and rice.
• Avoid: walking in and expecting the pre-order dishes, and ordering blind if heat is a problem for you. Nothing here is softened by default.

What locals & experts say

• Sofia Levin, food writer and MasterChef Australia judge: "Dainty Sichuan in South Yarra. It's got to be some of the better Sichuan food in the country, plus you can pre-order some fabulous dishes (cue lobster mapo tofu), and it's BYO." She names the suburb, which is how this vote was matched to this address rather than to one of the siblings. ref
• Gary Brun, Concrete Playground Melbourne: "Dainty Sichuan Food is home to some of the best (and spiciest) Chinese food in Melbourne. It's well worth a trip to South Yarra." He puts the Sichuan-style pork belly first and says the spicy beef noodle broth is "perfectly spiced". Concrete Playground publishes no date on its venue reviews, so this one is undated. ref
• The hat is the venue's own claim. Its site says it holds one hat in The Age Good Food Guide for 2025 to 2026, along with listings in The Age's 25 Most Iconic Restaurants and Gourmet Traveller's 50 Dishes That Define Australian Dining. None of that was confirmed at an awarding body in this pass, so it is recorded here as the restaurant's statement and nothing more. ref

Good to know

• Where: 176 Toorak Road, South Yarra. The venue now trades as Dainty on Toorak.
• Timing: seven days, 11.30am to 3pm and again from 5pm, to 9.30pm Sunday through Thursday and 10pm on Friday and Saturday.
• Booking: book, and ring ahead if you want the pre-order dishes.
• BYO: yes, and two independent sources say so.
• Sites: this is the Toorak Road room. Dainty Sichuan also runs a CBD hot-pot venue, Box Hill, Preston and Glen Waverley. None of the evidence here transfers to any of them.
• Diet: dry stir-fried beans and tomato with soft scrambled eggs are the vegetarian route named in the Concrete Playground review. No allergen statement is published.
• Food safety: Victoria publishes no venue hygiene ratings. Safe Food Victoria's section 53D register of convictions, as at 21 July 2026, carries fifteen entries and no Dainty premises appears on it. 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 — You can pre-order a lobster mapo tofu, which is the detail that tells you this kitchen is not just running the Sichuan greatest hits. Sofia Levin, who writes about food and judges MasterChef Australia, calls it 'some of the better Sichuan food in the country' and points out it is BYO, which for a $$$ room changes the maths considerably. The tables have hotplates built in for Chongqing hot pot, and the Chongqing chicken arrives as fried chicken under a pile of dried chilli. Gary Brun's Concrete Playground review lands on 'some of the best (and spiciest) Chinese food in Melbourne'. The room moved from Collingwood to Corrs Lane to Toorak Road as it outgrew each one. It holds here rather than higher because the only award anyone claims is claimed by the venue itself, and this is one branch of at least five, so the operator is running a format as well as a kitchen.