6 Best Restaurants in Melbourne, Victoria

This all-day bar and kitchen brings Indigenous food and culture to the center of the city. First Nations chef-owner Nornie Bero draws on her upbringing in the Torres Strait Islands to create a menu that uses 100% Australian products, and its packaged herbs, spices, and teas make unique Australian gifts. Seeking to use sustainable and social enterprise suppliers, try the house damper and wattleseed coffee, and get adventurous if you find emu fillets or pickled watermelon salad on the menu.

Grab a window table at this very popular, very stylish bay-side restaurant (housed in the former 1920s bathing pavilion), and enjoy wide-open views of St. Kilda Beach and its passing parade of in-line skaters, skateboarders, dog walkers, and ice-cream lickers. Start with the day's oysters, move to the fish and meats cooked superbly over charcoal, and slow it down over wine and cheese at this long-standing St. Kilda icon. Owners Kevin and Gail Donovan are such natural hosts you may feel like bunking down on the plush cushions near the cozy fireplace afterward.

You’ll find your place in one of the three levels at Farmer’s Daughters, in the fine-dining restaurant, in the deli, or up on the rooftop---its focus is the produce drawn from the rich farmlands of Gippsland, a region the size of Switzerland, to Melbourne’s east. Share small plates in the deli or opt for the chef’s selection (from A$85), choose the Gippsland Getaway set menu in the restaurant (A$140), or take a glass of Gippsland wine or a cocktail made with locally sourced spirits up on the roof, for a true farm-to-plate experience. Its pantry serves coffee from 7 am on weekdays. Chef Alejandro Saravia also heads up Victoria and Morena restaurants. 

Serving restaurant meals at breakfast, brunch, and lunch, Higher Ground leads the pack for early-morning dining. Grab a well-crafted pour-over and pastries, or linger over eggs paired with cauliflower, spanner crab Benedict, or the best ricotta hotcakes in town. The lunch service takes it up a notch with 12-hour lamb and a drinks menu featuring Australian craft beers and wines. With its soaring ceilings and raw brick walls, the decor is pure industrial chic. Avoid the busy peak periods.

Charcoal Lane is a social enterprise restaurant providing vulnerable young people with an opportunity to transform their lives by gaining a traineeship in the restaurant business. The inventive menu includes many Australian bushland ingredients, and the dishes have an Aboriginal influence. Named after a song by acclaimed Aboriginal singer/songwriter Archie Roach, it is housed in the former health service community center, dubbed Charcoal Lane by the many Aboriginal people, who for decades would drop in and swap stories and wisdom. They might include starters of roasted emu fillet or a wild food tasting plate of native produce. Mains include wallaby wrapped in Parma ham and pumpkin and wattleseed gnocchi. Desserts also have a "bush tucker" influence.