Melbourne.
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160 places
Rooms you can walk into, ranked the way I would send you.
Key: what the badges mean
★ Michelin star · Bib Bib Gourmand · Green ★ Michelin Green Star · Michelin in the Michelin guide, no distinction · J Jeff's own note · Jeff ★★★★☆ 2019 his own rating out of five, and the year he gave it · new the venue itself opened recently · just added recently added to Jeff's list, whatever its age · 2◆ independent chef/industry recommendations · ! hygiene caution in force · ? no current public hygiene record, not a caution · keep walking Jeff has been and would walk past it · the line under a name says when to go: Destination (plan around it) / Solid (the dependable send) / Listed (on the radar). Under it, where the entry states one: how the room takes bookings, and the date I last checked the entry.
Go here first.
Where I'd actually send you first: the rooms I'd put a visitor in on night one, in town rather than an hour down the highway, spread so six cards are six different answers. Producers, markets and the rest of the city are below.
Zareh3◆
Destination · Armenian-Lebanese · Collingwood · $$$
booking essential
Tom Sarafian cooked at London's St. John and Moro and ran the kitchen at Bar Saracen, then turned his hummus into a cult jarred brand, before opening Zareh in August 2025, named for his Armenian grandfather, who cooked professionally after migrating from Egypt.
Caretaker's Cottage8◆
Destination · Cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
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 · $$$
book ahead
The bar takes its name from a coaching inn that stood 50 metres up the road until the wreckers came in the early 1900s.
Embla13◆
Destination · Wine bar / wood-fired · CBD · $$$
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.
Flower Drum7◆
Destination · Cantonese fine dining · CBD · $$$$
booking essential
Gilbert Lau opened Flower Drum in 1975 and made it Melbourne's benchmark for Cantonese fine dining, and in the restaurant's 50th year the 2026 Good Food Guide (The Age) named it Restaurant of the Year.
Tipo 002◆
Destination · Italian / pasta · CBD · $$$
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.
New & next.
Dance Bakesnew
Listed · Cinnamon-scroll bakery · South Melbourne · $$
walk-in
The team started putting milk in the dough recently, which is what makes the crumb pillowy, and the head baker says the hard part is getting every scroll the same every day.
Sederhananew
Listed · Indonesian Padang · CBD · $$
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.
Joe Taylornew
Solid · Thai-heritage wine bar · North Melbourne · $$$
book ahead
The kitchen smokes the duck in the miang kham for three days in-house, before it ever meets the pepper leaf.
Bar Kaerunew
Solid · Sake bar / Japanese · CBD · $$
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.
Lune Croissanterie (Lonsdale St)new
Solid · Croissants · CBD · $$
walk-in
Kate Reid worked as an aerodynamicist for the Williams Formula 1 team before she switched to pastry, and she laminates inside a glass-walled, temperature-controlled Cube that holds the butter at one temperature so it never tears through the dough.
Bar Carnationnew
Solid · Wine bar / bistro · Carlton North · $$$
walk-in
Audrey Shaw took over a room that had run nineteen years as Gerald's Bar and kept the bar top, the opening hours and the smoking area out front.
Somewhere tonight.
One tap hides everything shut today and everything that needs a booking, then sorts the rest by how close it is to you. I don’t publish opening hours, because they go stale faster than anyone can check them. Check the door before you go.
For the night you're planning.
A table for eight, a quick lunch, something still cooking after eleven: tap the one you need and it opens the rooms that do it. Every time below shows the date it was last checked, so look at that date before you plan an evening around one.
What Melbourne is known for.
The plates, the room formats and the cooking the city owns, each with the rooms on my list that deliver it.
Melbourne coffee
The city's defining food culture, and it has its own vocabulary: a magic is a double ristretto in a small flat white.
Patricia Coffee Brewers · Seven Seeds Coffee Roasters · Brother Baba Budan +8
The parma
A pub serves chicken parmigiana with a pot of beer.
The Standard Hotel · The Palace Hotel · Great Northern Hotel +2
Melbourne Italian
The post-war Italian migration wrote Melbourne's other food language, and the city still eats in it.
Who is behind the picks.
The chefs who named these rooms, and the critics whose published reviews carry the Melbourne entries. Every name has a page and a count.
Rosheen Kaul
Chef · 4 picksChinese-Australian cooking, pop-ups and residencies; the pastry-and-cocktail crossover.
Rosheen Kaul is author of Chinese-ish and Secret Sauce; former Etta head chef; residencies at Bar Bellamy and the Little Rose pop-up.
Larissa Dubecki
Critic · 5 picksMelbourne restaurants across the price range; the big-room and group-restaurant end in particular.
Larissa Dubecki has been a Melbourne restaurant critic for years.
Charlie Duffy
Owner / operator · 2 picksBread and viennoiserie, baked in Melbourne.
Charlie Duffy is the baker-owner of Daybaker in Melbourne, working bread and viennoiserie.
The heavyweights
Every room here has won a Michelin star or a place on a 50 Best list, or has simply been running for decades. 8 here.
Bar Bellamyjust added4◆
Bistro / wine / cocktails · Carlton · $$$
book ahead
Two Melbourne chefs, asked separately where they drink, both said Bar Bellamy and both said get the devilled egg. One of them wanted a Picon Biere with it.
Three Horsesnew
Cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
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.
Gimlet8◆
Glam European grill · CBD · $$$$
booking essential
Andrew McConnell built Gimlet inside the 1920s Cavendish House on Russell Street around a square black-and-gold marble bar, and Broadsheet reads that bar as evidence of "the team's…
Above Board
Intimate cocktail bar · Collingwood · $$$
walk-in
The spirits are not on display anywhere in this bar. They sit in unmarked decanters in drawers under the counter, and the drinks list is about twenty-five long because that is how much fits.
Taqueria Sin Nombrenew
Mexican taqueria · CBD · $$
walk-in
The al pastor is turned by hand rather than on a motor, because the team decided a motorised trompo dries the pork out.
Lagoon Dining
Modern Cantonese · Carlton · $$$
book ahead
The hot and sour shredded potato is hand-cut into slivers, blanched to al dente and then flashed over a fierce wok, which is why it comes out crunchy under the black vinegar instead of surrendering to it.
The dependable sends
Good cooking needs no occasion, and these are the ones I hand out on a normal Tuesday. 54 here.
Patricia Coffee Brewers
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.
Byrdijust added
Native cocktail bar · CBD · $$$
walk-in
A Yarra Valley pear gets poached, dehydrated, rehydrated with smoke and distilled into a spirit that tastes like mezcal.
Supernormal2◆
Pan-Asian · CBD · $$$
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.
The Standard Hotel2◆
Gastropub · Fitzroy · $$
book ahead
The publican's stated method is a "continual invisible freshen up", changing the pub slowly enough that people who drank here a decade ago come back and say nothing has changed. It has.
Bar Liberty2◆
Natural wine bar · Fitzroy · $$$
book ahead
Roughly fifteen wines sit open at any one time, drawn from a list of about two hundred bins bought direct from independent growers.
Napier Quarterjust added4◆
Cafe / wine bar · Fitzroy · $$
book ahead
Asked to name his quintessential Melbourne experience, Alejandro Saravia described a piece of toast: anchovies on crisp sourdough, big dollops of mayonnaise, sliced egg and salsa verde.
On my list
These are on my list; I haven't been yet. 86 here.
Arbory Bar & EateryJeff ★★★★☆ 2018
Riverside bar · CBD · $$
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.
Belles Hot Chicken
Nashville hot chicken · Fitzroy · $$
walk-in
Broadsheet names what separates this from the rest: "Belles' bird packs an intense, dry crunch, differentiating it from the soggier versions around town."
Marquis of Lornejust added
Corner pub · Fitzroy · $$
book ahead
When Matt Vero and Steve Rowley took over a pub that had stood on the corner of George and Kerr for more than 150 years, Broadsheet reported the decision plainly: they "decided not to turn…
Rose Garden BBQ
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.
Dukes Coffee Roasters
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.
Whitebark Wine
Neighbourhood wine bar · West Melbourne · $$
book ahead
Josh Upton keeps almost no knives in the building, because the rule is that food leaves the kitchen finished.