RuYi Modern Chinese
A ruyi is a talisman meaning "as you wish". Sheng Fang's family had one until the red guards took it during the Cultural Revolution, and he named this restaurant after the one he built to replace it.
Why go
For dumplings made by people who were cooking at the Michelin-starred Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club before they came here (Broadsheet). Gemima Cody's four-star review put the crab xiao long bao at the front, with fresh crabmeat and pork in a broth she called rich and viscous, and the wontons in a pool of chilli oil and Chinese vinegar behind it (Time Out). The pickle work is the technical highlight: a flower of Chinese cabbage fermented in a sweet miso and horseradish marinade, which she rated among the best in the city. Sheng and Qian Qian spent years supplying other restaurants through their wholesale business Old Town Noodlery before opening this in December 2013. Paul Hecker did the room and every plate, glass and pitcher was thrown for it by the Melbourne ceramicist Andrei Davidoff.
Order this / avoid
- Order: crab xiao long bao. The ginger pork wontons. The fermented cabbage. Peking duck in the pre-rolled cones. Scallop and mango spring rolls if you want the dish that proves this is a kitchen rather than a dumpling counter.
- Avoid: the san choi bao, which Cody found miserly and gluey, and the cod on honeyed potato wedges, which split her table. There is no lunch service any more.
What locals & experts say
- Gemima Cody, Time Out, four stars, November 2015, on the dumpling that matters:
They also happen to make a hell of a crab xiao long bao – everyone's favourite soup-filled pinch-topped pouches, here holding a loose cargo of fresh crabmeat and pork mince lightly flecked with coriander root in a rich viscous broth.
1 - The same review on the pickles: the cabbage is
sharp, funky and fiery from a fermentation in a sweet miso and horseradish-based marinade
, and she rates them among the best in town.1 - And the complaint, in her words: the lettuce cups carry
a slightly miserly and subtle serve of chicken mince and pine nuts in a glutinous sauce
, and the cod cutlets on honeyed peppered potato wedges area table divider
.1 - Broadsheet on the name: Fang's family ruyi was
an heirloom passed down the generations until it was looted by the red guards during the Cultural Revolution
.2 - What is missing: nothing has been published about this kitchen since 2015, and no Melbourne chef in the 74-pick corpus names it.
Good to know
- Where: 16 Liverpool Street, on the Chinatown side of the CBD.
- Timing: dinner only. Tuesday from 6pm, Wednesday from 5pm, Thursday and Friday from 5.30pm, Saturday from 5pm, closing 10pm early in the week and 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Sunday and Monday are for functions.
- Booking: worth booking, by phone or through the venue's site.
- Drink: a concise Australian and European wine list. No source describes a cocktail bar here.
- The name: the venue writes Ruyi, and listings also carry RuYi Modern Chinese.
- Safety: Victoria publishes no venue hygiene rating. Safe Food Victoria's s.53D register of convictions, fifteen entries at its 21 July 2026 update, does not list this venue.5
Verdict
could-visit — Sheng Fang's family had a ruyi, the talisman that means as you wish, and the red guards took it during the Cultural Revolution. He named the restaurant after the one he decided to build instead, with his wife Qian Qian. That is the story, it is on Broadsheet, and it is more interesting than most things restaurants are named for. Gemima Cody gave it four stars in 2015 with two chefs poached from the Michelin-starred Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in the kitchen, and the dishes she rated hold up as an order: crab xiao long bao with a broth she called rich and viscous, ginger pork wontons sitting in chilli oil and Chinese vinegar, and a flower of fermented Chinese cabbage cured in sweet miso and horseradish that she called some of the best pickles in town. She was less kind about the san choi bao and a cod dish that split the table. Two things to know now. Listings promise a cocktail-bar edge and there is no evidence of one; the drink here is wine. And the kitchen has dropped lunch entirely, running dinner Tuesday to Saturday with Sunday and Monday given over to functions, which is a room doing less than it did. It stays at could-visit on eleven-year-old evidence.