Melbourne Is Australia’s Iconic Restaurant City

Melbourne has one of the most dynamic dining scenes in the world, a chef-driven city that banks on its multicultural makeup to foster creativity. It helps that the state of Victoria not only has a coastline that has excellent seafood and a countryside filled with prosperous farms. It’s also home to some of Australia’s outstanding wineries in places like the Yarra Valley, the Mornington Peninsula, and the Grampians.

Getting to Melbourne is even easier now that Qantas recently inaugurated nonstop service from Dallas. It’s a city bursting with energy, enthusiasm, and ideas following two years of the tightest lockdown in the country. On a recent swing through Australia’s culinary capital, I had a chance to sample several places I’d recommend.

The much-touted multicultural threads can be seen all over the city, especially at La Madonna, the golden-lit and beautifully outfitted restaurant in the sleek glass tower hotel called Next on Little Collins Street. It’s where Danny Natoli, a chef of Sicilian background, pairs off with his friend and fellow chef Adrian Li, who helmed two Asian eateries in the city, Tokyo Tina and Saigon Sally. The pair serve stracciatella-stuffed oxheart tomatoes, Skull Island prawns, and Campari-glazed roasted duck. The restaurant’s illuminated cheese-and-charcuterie cabinet is worthy of Tiffany’s.

Yet Melbourne is about more than fine dining. It starts at the ground level with more coffee shops than half a dozen iterations of Seattle, places that take extraordinary care of what goes in the cup. They boast clients who have a fierce loyalty to those who make their preferred flat white or long black. Some evoke Rome, others Madrid, but the most elegantly austere is called Dame, inspired by the I.M. Pei building in which it sits. Your morning beverage of choice can accompany maple granola, avocado toast with “an honest egg,” or simply toast, which the Aussies have elevated to an art form, to be served with preserves and nut butter.

By all means, head over to the sprawling Queen Victoria Market in the city’s heart. A Saturday morning here is pure theater, thanks to the 600-plus stalls, the shouting salespeople with practiced spiels, food trucks galore, and some interesting shops, like the jam-packed Books for Cooks, a trove of cooking and food books from all over the world.

If you have an adventurous palate, go for lunch at Big Esso at Federation Square. The fare at this Indigenous-owned restaurant is from the Torres Strait Islanders. It includes such offerings as charred molasses emu, fried pineapple with papaya, chili, mango remoulade, witloof, and desert lime, or saltbush and pepper berry fried crocodile served with smoked oyster aioli.

At the upscale Victoria by Farmer’s Daughter, also in Federation Square, the view is of the river and The Princess Walk, while the food is by Chef Alejandro Saravia and a solid exploration of the products and tastes of the state of Victoria. His Provenance Menu one night included Cobb Lane sourdough bread served with Inglenook Dairy salted butter, which was addictive. The Spud Sisters’ hand-cut chips served with smoked hollandaise managed to be crispy, soft, and salty, thanks to being oven baked and twice-fried, arguably some of the best French fries on the planet. Sher Wagyu Beef, pork loin from the Western Plains, and a Floating Island to finish was incredible. The wines included a 2021 Onannon Chardonnay from the Mornington Peninsula and a 2020 Mitchell Harris Shiraz.

The most consistent and exciting food I had in a few days in Melbourne was at the restaurants run by chef-restaurateur Andrew McConnell. They included wines by the glass and nibbles at Marion in a neighborhood called Fitzroy, which feels like it belongs in San Francisco. With its slightly funky architecture and colorful characters out for a Friday night aperitif before heading to dinner, it was the perfect place to watch brightly-dressed Melbournians on parade. A former metalworks that now has towering walls of wine bottles, Marion is where we tasted The Story “MRV,” a 2018 blend of Marsanne, Roussanne, and Viognier from The Grampians, as well as a 2019 Thick as Thieves Left-Field Blend from King Valley. They were accompanied by Salame Norcia, Sicilian crudo, and fromage blanc with flatbread and Oritz anchovies while salsa played in the background.

It got even better when we dined at Cumulus, McConnell’s lively bistro on Flinders Lane, in the heart of the city’s art and fashion district. Situated in a century-old building that once served the rag trade, this all-day dining venue seems perpetually busy without being mobbed. It’s a place that’s noisy enough to feel the energy but not too loud to talk. A tasting menu offered belly-quality tuna tartare with goat’s curd, green pea, and mint, followed by Fremantle octopus from Australia’s west coast, marinated in Daikon to tenderize it, served with Kipfler potatoes, chili, and olives. Ricotta and semolina gnocchi with toasted chickpeas were terrific, as were yellow beans with cucumber from the famed Ramarro Farm in the Yarra Valley. The main was the Milawa Duck Breast with Pommes Anna. Wines included a buttery 2017 Mac Forbes “Woori Yallock” Chardonnay from the Yarra Valley and a mighty 2012 Dalwhinnie “Moonamebel” Shiraz from the Pyrenees of Victoria.

Time was short in Melbourne, and we only had time for dessert and a nightcap at Gimlet at Cavendish House, one of McConnell’s newest ventures. It has the kind of clubby feel that evokes a well-heeled London restaurant. With a steak and seafood menu with grilled specialties, it’s a place to order John Dory and think you’re somewhere near Covent Garden, albeit with far better wines and friendlier service. I sat at the horseshoe-shaped bar in the dimly lit space that was vaguely Art Deco-ish and only had time for dessert and a nightcap. In my case, it was almond milk, and Meyer lemon gelato served with a caramelized brioche, with a 2021 Sherrat Shiraz Viognier from the Yarra Valley to finish the evening. Gimlet is on my shortlist for a return visit to sample more of Melbourne’s remarkable food scene.