Get FREE email communications from Fodor's Travel, covering must-see travel destinations, expert trip planning advice, and travel inspiration to fuel your passion.
Melbourne has fabulous food, and is known in some circles as Australia's food capital. The restaurants themselves are often exceptionally stylish and elegant—or totally edgy and funky in their own individual way. Some are even deliberately grungy. The dining scene is a vast array of cuisines and experiences that's constantly evolving. The swankiest (and most expensive) restaurants all have five- to eight-course degustation menus (with the opportunity to wine-match each course), but newer restaurants are opting for tapas-style or grazing plates. Flexibility is the new word in dining—restaurants are often also funky bars and vice versa.
Shared plates of Southeast Asian dishes form the basis of Chin Chin's popular menu. Modeled on hawker-style dining, book ahead or come for early or late to avoid the rush at this perpetually popular restaurant. Otherwise, grab a table, a playful cocktail featuring Asian ingredients and order from the same menu at the GoGo Bar downstairs---DJs set the tone late into the night Thursday to Sunday.
Chef Andrew McConnell’s dominance of the Melbourne food scene is undisputed: besides this playful Pan-Asian restaurant, his stable includes glossy late-night European restaurant Gimlet and superb 1920s-style cocktail bar Apollo Inn. Fight off the competition for a seat at Supernormal’s buzzing bar and eat your way through Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, and Hong Kong: share plates of bao, dumplings, and the raw kingfish. The McConnell’s New England lobster rolls have a cult following.
