The Best Restaurants and Food Experiences in Melbourne Right Now

Melbourne's food scene is Australia's most celebrated and most contested: the city's long-established reputation as Australia's food capital (built on the strength of its Italian, Greek, Chinese, and Vietnamese migrant communities, its world-class coffee culture, and its extraordinary restaurant density in the inner suburbs) continues to attract Australia's most ambitious chefs and most enthusiastic diners. The best of Melbourne's food scene ranges from the internationally acclaimed fine dining institutions (Attica, Vue de Monde, Flower Drum) through the extraordinary laneway cafe culture (Degraves Street, Hardware Lane, Centre Place) to the vibrant multicultural suburban restaurant precincts (Victoria Street Richmond for Vietnamese, Lygon Street Carlton for Italian, Sydney Road Brunswick for Lebanese).

Carlton and Lygon Street — Lygon Street (Carlton's famous Italian restaurant and cafe strip, 2km north of the Melbourne CBD) is one of Australia's most iconic food streets: the pavement dining, the trattorie, the gelato bars, and the espresso culture of Lygon Street have been central to Melbourne's food identity since the postwar Italian immigration wave of the 1950s. While some of the original trattorias have been replaced by more contemporary restaurants, the Lygon Street food culture (outdoor dining, good house wine, excellent pasta, and the social atmosphere of Italian street dining) remains as vital as ever. The Queen Victoria Night Market (summer) and the Lygon Street Festa (autumn) are among Melbourne's best food street events.

Fitzroy and Smith Street — Smith Street (Fitzroy/Collingwood, 2km north-east of the CBD) and the adjacent Johnston Street (the Spanish Quarter) and Brunswick Street (Fitzroy's main restaurant strip) collectively form Melbourne's most dynamic restaurant neighbourhood: the extraordinary diversity of restaurants (from excellent bar dining at the Builders Arms Hotel and the Provincial Hotel to some of Melbourne's finest contemporary Australian restaurants at Cutler and Co and Ides), the natural wine bars (Bar Liberty, Vino Sotto), the excellent Asian restaurants (Huxtaburger, Izakaya Den), and the thriving brunch culture make Fitzroy the neighbourhood most closely associated with Melbourne's food innovation.

The Queen Victoria Market — the Queen Victoria Market (the "Vic Market", 7 hectares in the northern CBD, operating since 1878) is Melbourne's most important food institution: the Tuesday to Sunday outdoor market (featuring the extraordinary Deli Hall with its outstanding European smallgoods, cheeses, and fresh produce, the fresh meat and fish halls, and the outdoor general merchandise stalls) is a genuine living piece of Melbourne's cultural heritage and the best place in the city to buy fresh produce, artisan bread, and the extraordinary variety of imported European foods that define Melbourne's multicultural food culture.

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