The Best Restaurant in Melbourne, Victoria

Background Illustration for Restaurants

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.

ShanDong MaMa Mini

$ | City Center Fodor's Choice

At one of a series of hole-in-the-wall diners in busy Centre Place, pull up a stool and load your little table with stewed pork-belly buns, made from a family recipe employing 10 different spices. But the signature of this little diner is its top-notch dumplings filled with a fine mackerel-and-coriander mousse. Wash it all down with an Australian craft beer. For more, visit its mother restaurant, ShanDong Mama, in the Midcity Centre arcade. The queues move quickly, and it's worth the wait.