18 Best Restaurants in Melbourne, Victoria

To find out just how seriously Melbourne takes its coffee, visit this small-batch, specialty coffee roaster up "the Paris end" of Collins Street. Located in the stately Old Treasury Building, take a seat to enjoy the coffee, then shop the beans, cups, books, and coffee-brewing equipment. Aside from coffee, it also serves pastries and sandwiches. Find Market Lane Coffee's design-led outposts in several locations including Queen Victoria Markets, South Melbourne, and Prahran Market.

For the freshest rounds of Lebanese bread, go to the source of the best khobz (bread) in the city: A1 Bakery has been running the ovens here since 1992. Sit in for Lebanese pizzas and kibbe (deep-fried lamb mince in cracked wheat) or order a falafel wrap to go. Don't forget the baklava.

A chalkboard on the exposed brick wall of this long-standing favorite lists eight dry and six sweet sherries to start (or finish) your Andalusian dining adventure, and there are Spanish and Portuguese wines to accompany your selection of tapas and larger shared plates. Seated at a table or on a stool at the bar, begin with anchovy tapa, and go on to the authentic paella. Just leave room for dessert; the churros and chocolate are sinful. If you really can't decide, order the dessert tasting plate for two.

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.

First opened in 1974, this iconic Romanesque bakery is in the heart of Lygon Street and still filled with perfect biscotti, mouthwatering cakes, and great service. In addition to an expanded lunch menu, a wood-fire oven—specially imported from Italy—makes pizzas, and you can finish it all off with a perfect espresso or a thick European-style hot chocolate with a cornetto con crema (custard-filled croissant). Enjoy the same tempting delights at the beautiful, birdcage-like Brunetti Oro in Flinders Lane in the city center.

One of the best tables in town, this upscale bistro treads a very fine line between mannered elegance and decadence. A sleek marble bar and modishly ravaged walls contribute to the sense that you've stepped into a scene from La Dolce Vita. Happily, the restaurant is as serious about its food as its sense of style. Crisply roasted duck is now a local legend, and the pasta is always al dente. For an informal drink before your meal, an adjoining bar has local wines and a light menu of the same high standards for those who failed to get a booking. For long lunches in sunny courtyards, book a table at its sublime Carlton restaurant, there's also an outpost in the city center.

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. 

Since 1928, dining at Florentino has meant experiencing the pinnacle of Melbourne hospitality. After taking a seat in the famous mural room, with its huge chandeliers, wooden panels, and Florentine murals, you can sample dishes like suckling pig, and duck and porcini tortellini from the à la carte menu. The seven-course tasting menu costs A$210. Downstairs, the Grill focuses on wood-fired dishes including pici (pasta) with wild boar ragu or grass-fed steaks, while in the Cellar Bar, you can start your day with Italian pastries and espresso on the outside tables from 9 am, or finish the night with a glass of wine and pasta of the day.

Superb Cantonese cuisine is the hallmark of one of Australia's truly great Chinese restaurants, which is still receiving awards after opening in 1975. The restrained elegance of the design, deftness of the service, and intelligence of the wine list puts most other restaurants to shame. Those in the know don't order from the menu at all but simply ask the waiter to bring the specials, which often change between lunch and dinner with the arrival of produce fresh from suppliers.

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.

The name means "alleyway" and in a sea of dumpling houses in Melbourne, down this little alleyway, you'll find the best of them all. The menu includes popular steamed pork dumplings, and the pan-fried variations of pork, chicken, prawn, and chives hold up well, too. The staff is highly trained, and if the space on the ground floor is too snug, ask to go upstairs where there's room to breathe. Bookings are essential, but if you're feeling lucky, arrive at 11:30 am on the dot to try for a table—there will probably be a line of hopefuls already.

Tucking into a steaming bowl of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) at this Victoria Street restaurant is like channeling the backstreets of Hanoi. Each order comes with a piled plate of Vietnamese mint, bean shoots, and lemon wedges, and there are bottles of chili paste and fish sauce on every mock-marble plastic table. Vegetarian pho is also available. This restaurant is crowded with Vietnamese and other pho lovers on weekends, so you often have to line up on the footpath, but turnover is fast so it's never long before you are seated and eating some of Melbourne's best—and cheapest—food. I Love Pho also has an outpost at the Melbourne Emporium food hall in the city center.

Locals and tourists alike can be found queueing outside Lune each morning for the city's most beloved pastries including what some say are the world's best croissants, which take three days to create. Not afraid to experiment, their seasonal flavors may include pumpkin pie or Persian love cake. Inside a Brutalist concrete warehouse, croissants, and cruffins fly out of the oven and into the hands of eager customers until there are none left. The pastries are best consumed with Lune's excellent coffee. A city outpost is located at 161 Collins Street and 835 High Street Armadale.

With one of Melbourne's first espresso machines installed here in 1954, it was the beginning of the city's love affair with both Italian coffee and Pellegrini's, and the creation of a city institution. Take a stool at the bar or the table in the kitchen and choose from such classics as lasagna or cannelloni—servings are fresh, fast, and vast—then let the staff talk you into a slab of strudel to finish. The off-menu watermelon granita is a delight.

Taking inspiration from the steak houses of North America, Rockpool is one of Australia's premier grill restaurants. Start with the whole king prawns hot from the wood-fire grill, and move onto a range of beef cuts that have been aged and butchered in-house, then cooked over fire. Expect deeply knowledgeable staff who can answer your questions on dry aging, Wagyu grades, or why they serve antibiotic-free beef. One of the city's best-kept secrets is the spectacular Wagyu burger on the bar menu. Pair it with one of Rockpool's excellent wines by the glass.

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.