Melbourne has had a steady influx of impressive new restaurants, cosy new wine bars and revamped pubs to while away cooler days and moody evenings. From new rooftop venues to glitzy restaurants in the Melbourne CBD, the hottest new spot for your next booking changes on any given day. So, to keep you updated on all the best new Melbourne restaurants, we’ve handpicked this list of noteworthy venue openings that you should have on your radar.
Here are the best new restaurants in Melbourne that we think you should know about (and book, ASAP).
Agnii
Chef Gayan Pieris of noted Mornington Peninsula restaurant Many Little has opened Agnii in Windsor. Building on the Sri Lankan cuisine that’s made Many Little a fixture on the Peninsula, Pieris’s new restaurant has a charcoal grill, dara lipa (a clay hearth) and poranuwa (an enclosed oven for smoking, drying and roasting) at the centre of its kitchen.
Traditional preservation and fermentation methods underpin the menu next to produce from the Peninsula and spices ethically sourced from Sri Lankan producers. On the opening menu, sourdough pol roti with crab curry essence and pol sambol butter is followed by spiced duck sausage-stuffed chicken wings with fermented green mango and lunu dehi (a salted lime pickle); baby octopus with fermented chilli and kiribath (a creamy, pressed rice accompaniment), pickled zucchini and Amma’s chilli crunch; and a goat curry with pittu, thosa and chutneys.
Drinks complement the kitchen’s offering, with arrack and toddy cocktails, a Sri Lankan red rice lager by Banks Brewery, house sodas and a wine list featuring small-scale and biodynamic producers. Cohesive nods to Sri Lanka throughout Agnii include a signature Ayurvedic scent by a Colombo-based producer, hand-carved wooden plates, and clay and natural materials. Bookings are available online.
Én
Led by two chefs with more than 50 years of combined experience, Én is a new two-level Japanese restaurant in the Melbourne CBD. Chefs Takuro Abe and Shiro Fukushima (both ex-Warabi) serve Kappo cuisine, drawing from premium Australian and Japanese produce across set menus (available from $115pp) or an extensive à la carte offering.
Menu highlights include Chiba-style namerou fish tartare with miso, ginger and herbs; hibachi-grilled Kagoshima A5 wagyu; zuke maguro nigiri topped with glossy marinated tuna and Japanese desserts like hojicha panna cotta with sesame crunch. Sushi follows the Edomae style, utilising processes like marinating and pickling, and seasoning rice with red akazu vinegar (made from spent sake lees) to present a deep, savoury profile.
The two-level Bligh Place restaurant (just off Flinders Lane) comprises an upper dining room, anchored around a dramatic chef’s counter, with a bar and more seating including a long, communal table downstairs. Both spaces have a scheme of black timber, concrete, rust and gunmetal. From late October, the lower level will evolve into a Tokyo-style listening bar after 9.30pm Thursday–Saturday, with cocktails, Japanese whisky and a menu of snacks available until late. Bookings can be made online.
Delmonte
Melbourne’s Italian restaurant renaissance continues. Reviving a Lygon Street corner into a new ode to Italian dining, Delmonte is the ground-floor offering of Jamie Valmorbida’s (Pidapipo, Johnny’s Green Room) King & Godfree project. Having traded under the same liquor licence since the 1870s (and acquired by Jamie’s grandfather, Carlo, in the ’50s), the corner site now has a wood-fired grill and oven, with long bar counters and creamy tiling evoking its history as a deli.
The menu by King & Godfree culinary director Karen Martini, executive chef Mark Glenn and head chef Diana Desensi (Daphne, Julie) was designed to be flexible and timeless. “We wanted a menu people could come back to again and again and always find something new, while still feeling completely at home,” said Martini. “It’s produce-led and built on classical technique, but every dish still needs to feel unmistakably Italian.”
Highlights include three-cheese suppli; a salumi selection including culatta, mortadella and Wagyu bresaola; fresh pasta like mezze maniche alla carbonara; and ham and fontina-stuffed pork costoletta from Donati’s Fine Meats — another Lygon Street institution Valmorbida rescued earlier in the year. A dedicated dessert station offers theatrical servings of crepes al forno with ricotta, mandarin and grappa, gelati and tiramisù. The drinks list spotlights Italian, and particularly Piedmontese, wine alongside back vintages from the King & Godfree cellar, and the usual Italian cocktail suspects. A custom hi-fi system, record player built into the bar and considered acoustic engineering have local vinyl DJs topping things off at the reimaigined neighbourhood haunt.
Roma
From Melbourne hospitality trio Con Christopoulos (The European, Kafeneion, City Wine Shop), executive chef Matt Wilkinson (Pope Joan) and Giovanni Patane, Roma is Collins Street’s new Italian restaurant where almost every element takes inspiration from the Eternal City.
Wilkinson’s menu covers the requisite pasta program, a page of offal dishes in the spirit of “quinto quarto” Roman butchery (including the paccheri alla baronessa, with chicken livers and mushrooms), and exclusive use of extra virgin olive oil for everything from deep-frying to drizzling, while the wine list focuses on the Lazio region, among a broader selection of European and Australian producers. Offering a polished experience where the lively and comfortable trattoria spirit is encouraged, the dining room features century-old Italian details and a mammoth 1930s marble table dressed with the day’s best produce, while a separate breakfast menu can be enjoyed on the terrace.
Spaghetti Club
A homely trattoria inspired by a dog-eared family recipe book has landed on Swan Street in Richmond, though Spaghetti Club isn’t entirely what its name suggests. The eighth venue from Mama’s Dining Group (Disuko, Hochi Mama), this Southern Italian restaurant draws on the childhood of co-founder Lucas Gugliandolo, whose late Nonno spent decades cooking in kitchens across Sicily and Australia, documenting recipes in a faded orange notebook along the way.
“The orange book was never meant to become a restaurant,” says Gugliandolo. “It was simply Nonno writing down what he cooked throughout his life, from pastry kitchens in Sicily through to the dinners we all grew up around.”
Head chef Michael Fleming (ex-Totti’s Bondi and Press Food & Wine Adelaide) has reworked those family dishes into a menu that extends beyond pasta, spanning pork chop cotoletta with fried capers and parmesan; Nonno’s bubbling lasagne layered with bolognese and béchamel; and involtini stuffed with provolone and herb crumb. Pasta still features, naturally, with house-made spaghetti vongole finished with lemon and bottarga, alongside cacio e pepe arancini with black garlic aioli. Meanwhile, the drinks list leans into aperitivo culture with Negronis, spritzes, Italian lagers and local wines at the fore.
The venue itself exudes all the warmth of Nonna and Nonno’s house, with a few upgrades —including marble tables and plush, sunflower-yellow booths — that place it loosely in the neighbourhood trattoria category.
Julietta
Pasta and Negronis lead the charge at Julietta, South Yarra’s intimate new Italian restaurant from the Mamasita team. Located on the corner of Toorak Road and Chambers Street, it channels a cosy, neighbourhood trattoria. Think burgundy banquettes, vintage brass lights and European awnings, joined by shelves of house pickles and imported flour and tomatoes for the pasta program. The menu follows a familiar format, moving from antipasti to larger plates, with handmade pasta at its core.
“It’s about doing things really well – pasta at the centre, with dishes that feel familiar,” says executive chef Jimmy Garside (Mamasita, The Apollo). Expect burrata with pine nuts and sweet-sour golden raisin agrodolce or crisp potato fritti with saffron aioli, followed by pastas that riff on the classics: green peppercorn cacio e pepe, short rib ragu and an nduja-vodka bake with stracciatella. Desserts lean similarly classic, with favourites like coffee semifreddo with amaretto caramel and chocolate cake drizzled with olive oil. Drinks skew Italian, anchored by a tight Negroni selection, from a shiraz-gin twist to a tequila-led Rosita with strawberry Campari and white cacao.
Florentino
While the Florentino name is most definitely not new — it’s approaching its centenary in 2028 — the Bourke Street institution has relaunched under the ownership of the Edition Group (NOMAD Sydney and Melbourne, Reine & La Rue) following its acquisition from Guy Grossi’s Grossi Group after a 27-year tenure. Its distinct offerings now include flagship restaurant space Florentino Dining Room, where three-, five- and seven-course menus offer house-made pastas, seasonal interpretations of Italian traditions, and long-standing favourite desserts like chocolate soufflé and tiramisu using Melbourne-based Cuvée Chocolate.
Next door, Café Florentino (formerly Grossi Grill) has returned to its original name, serving a Tuscan-inspired a la carte menu delivered from a wood-fired grill and Josper oven; naturally, there’s a bistecca alla Fiorentina and one of the country’s most substantial selections of Tuscan wines. The charming Cellar Bar continues trade until late Monday–Saturday as a wine and pasta bar, with 15-20 wines available by the glass and a new aperitivo hour from 3pm tempting early visits with a $9 piccolo Martini, $10 Garibaldi, wine from $12 and $12 antipasti including calamari fritti with basil aioli.
Geralds Bar
After more than 20 years operating from a beloved but tiny shopfront, Geralds Bar has reopened a few blocks away in a significantly larger Carlton North space. Now on Lygon Street, the expanded venue offers far more room to linger, dine and gather, while remaining deeply anchored to the spirit that made the original so enduring. Much of the bar’s character has been rebuilt by hand: original shelving has been carefully restored, a sculptural curving bar and 300-year-old brushbox timber bar top. With the addition of chef Matt Podbury alongside long-time Geralds chef Pete Savage, the menu sees elevated dishes such as raw nannygai from WA with a cucumber chutney, horseradish yoghurt and Aleppo pepper, as well as baked cheesecake and crème caramel from the separate pastry kitchen.
For a slower, multi-course experience, Geralds’s separate 35-seat dining room, The Parlour, offers a refined menu of seasonal dishes and desserts including line-caught Blue Eye with courgette and basil, petit fours, goose fat fudge and a selection of cheese served from a roaming trolley.
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Daphne
Steps away from her adored restaurant Etta, Hannah Green has introduced Daphne to the Lygon Street dining scene. “It’s a restaurateur’s answer to a pub,” she says. “The mood is fun and easygoing, and the food is highly delicious but not too fancy.” The kitchen is doing big, European-leaning flavours centred on seasonality, like Bloody Mary heirloom tomatoes with pickles and olives; grilled potato flatbread with mussels, celery hearts and whipped cod; and a half chicken roasted over the custom hearth.
Small serves for children, weekly steak and pasta nights, and a late-night supper menu from 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays cover most bases. The wine list, curated by sommelier Ashley Boburka (Etta, Rockpool), offers shared access to the 450-bottle selection at Etta, plus wines on tap made for the venue by the Yarra Valley’s Valentine Wines and a house draught by Hop Nation Brewing Co. Complementing the menu and blending classics with creativity, cocktails include a rhubarb Spritz and olive oil Sour, with a Monday night $15 Martini Club serving spins on the cocktail of the moment. Retaining the welcoming feel (and terrazzo flooring) of Bar Romantica, the casual front bar and rear dining room have been updated with a welcoming palette of walnut timber, glass brick, antique mirrors, coffee-coloured upholstery, Australian marble and crimson textiles.
Yiaga
In the beautiful Fitzroy Gardens in East Melbourne, Yiaga is Hugh Allen’s first restaurant. The former Noma and Rockpool chef (who remains executive chef at Vue de Monde) and head chef Michael McAulay (also Noma, Vue de Monde) serve a $295 set menu expressing seasonality, intention, and a deep commitment to the best ingredients sourced from farmers, fishers, growers and makers across Australia, like deeply flavoured beef from retired Blackmore Wagyu breeding cows; Queensland coral trout; and wakame seaweed foraged from the Victorian coast.
The venue, designed by noted architect John Wardle, comprises an open-plan layout breaking any barriers between the kitchen and 44-seat dining room, with Allen and Wardle’s shared appreciation for detail, craftsmanship and sense of place on display inside and out.
Death & Co
Saadi
Heritage flavours star at Saadi in the CBD, the new restaurant by chef couple Saavni Krishnan and Sriram Aditya Suresh. Their reimagined family recipes and takes on lesser-known dishes from the Indian subcontinent are delivered with confidence accrued through almost 12 years in Australian kitchens, plus a dozen pop-ups and residencies in Melbourne in recent years.
Krishnan, who was raised in Mumbai to Punjabi and Tamilian parents, has worked at Fred’s in Sydney, and Etta and Manzé in Melbourne, and Suresh (most recently head chef at Coburg’s Gemini) was exposed to diverse regions and their food cultures, thanks to his Tamilian father’s postings with the Indian navy. Saadi’s menu highlights prime, in-season vegetables; idli (rice cakes) are topped with spiced Dutch carrots, and fritters of veggies in a precariously delicate batter are served on a yoghurt sauce. Select proteins include pulikachal (simmered tamarind) flathead from Corner Inlet with curry leaf chutney, and Loddon Valley lamb brisket complemented by fermented citrus dressing. Saadi has taken over Halim Group’s split-level Punch Lane site, which was formerly home to Sunda.
Harriot
A cracking team has assembled to lead a new opening in Melbourne’s CBD, by Conferre Group, the folks also behind Tipo 00, Osteria Ilaria, Figlia and Grana. Harriot will see Andreas Papadakis (partner and group executive chef) and Luke Skidmore (partner and director) joined by executive chef James Kelly (previously at Lyle’s London and Embla) and head sommelier Justin Howe (ex-Osteria Ilaria and Embla). The modern European restaurant is a slight departure for the group, which has focused mostly on Italian fare, though it won’t stray too far from the formula of excellent food and outstanding wine. “I’m excited because it’s my first head chef role,” Kelly tells GT. “There’s so much interesting Australian produce to explore and we’ve got a beautiful brand new kitchen.” Tucked within the recently opened 555 Collins Street, the restaurant is designed to seat around 60 diners, including a 14-person private dining room. Clocking in with a Melbourne sensibility and a tempting range of Victorian produce, expect white tablecloths to showcase starters such as oysters with preserved quince and horseradish; chicken liver parfait and chestnut; and bluefin tuna with rye. Mains-wise, they’re considering rainbow trout served with baby leeks and roe; and Sher wagyu rump with parsley root and pink radicchio. Meanwhile, in territory that might feel more familiar to Conferre Group diners, an elegant spanner crab ravioli with butternut pumpkin and bergamot will also be making an appearance.
