16 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Melbourne celebrates its Italian community in this new hub, the first overseas outpost of the hugely successful markets in Florence and Rome. Step in the huge halls to find 23 stalls dedicated to things like fresh-baked bread, coffee, cannoli, pizza, fresh fish, and aged meats—there's even a gluten-free risotto stall. Shop for a to-go meal or take a seat in the restaurant or pizzeria upstairs for table service—they take reservations here. Shop for organic wines or cozy up in the cocktail bar for an aperitivo. il Mercato is open until midnight on Friday and Saturday night but bring your credit card, as the market is cashless.

Vegan and vegetarian fare is the focus of this restaurant, set in the Ovolo South Yarra hotel. With a strong Latin American vibe, choose the vegan versions of chicken tamales, moqueca (Brazilian seafood stew), or the queso con chorizo, and vegetable dishes from its charcoal oven. The hotel restaurant is an all-day affair, morphing into a wine bar later in the evening, with cocktails with Latin zing. For more plant-based goodness by pioneer chef Shannon Martinez, try her vegan bellwether restaurant and deli  Smith & Daughters, in Collingwood.

Past the yoga rooms and juice bars, Acland Street's timeless draw is its old-school cake shops, and Monarch has been doling out its creamy glories since 1934. Fresh cakes and slices are displayed behind glass windows that lure the crowds, before being packed carefully in boxes to go, for an instant picnic treat. Most recipes give an indication of the founders' Eastern European origins: make the difficult choice from its array of Polish baked cheesecakes, chocolate gugelhupf (a Bundt-style cake), strudels, and the ubiquitous custard vanilla slice.

As the name suggests, this vibrant Spanish tapas restaurant is next door to something—in this case the grown-up parent restaurant called MoVida. This is the casual little sister for those wanting a quick refueling of sherry and seafood. Dishes range from tapas like crispy fried croquette with leek and manchego. Finish off with churros con chocolate (Spanish fried dough served with a hot, thick chocolate drink). It gets busy so book ahead (book online). For a bigger meal, book a table at MoVida next door. Both eateries are owned by Spanish chef Frank Camorra, an innovator in the Melbourne dining scene.