Melbourne for beginners: How to spend your time in Australia's second city

If you’re coming to Melbourne, it’s because you’re interested in other things. Things such as food and wine, music, art, and culture, a vibrant street scene, nightlife, and, of course, good coffee.

When you need a tipple

Johnny di Francesco has been working in hospitality since he was 12, and his 400 Gradi pizza empire is considered Melbourne’s best. Like many hospitality veterans, Di Francesco has an insider tip on the city’s best bars.

One of his favourites is Eau de Vie. Taking inspiration from the speakeasies of Prohibition America, its moody interior even includes a whiskey room hidden behind a bookcase. “It’s intimate. I like to sit in the little nooks or at the bar.”

While his younger staff head straight to Nick and Nora’s, a city bar with a similar vintage atmosphere, for an after-work drink, Di Francesco prefers the Carlton Yacht Club, which is nowhere near the bay, but offers an unpretentious good time and well-priced cocktails. “It’s a bit of fun,” he says.

Despite its erroneous reputation for bad weather, Melbourne loves a rooftop bar. Siglo has views of Parliament House and St Patrick’s Cathedral and attracts fans of fine whiskey and cigars. It’s the first place Di Francesco takes visitors. “They’ve got one of the most extensive beverage lists across Australia,” he says.

Melbourne’s bar scene is also characterised by small, intimate spaces like Cathedral Coffee and Wine Bar at the Nicholas Building (see below), one of Melbourne’s coolest (and tiniest) drinking spots. It’s this kind of innovation that keeps the bar scene vibrant despite the ups and downs of the industry and the impact of covid.

“Melburnian restaurateurs were the pioneers in hospitality, and I think we still are,” says Di Francesco.

Out and about

Love brought Edith Vignal to Melbourne, but it was music that made her stay. Arriving from France in 2008, Vignal says: “You can go to a bar and listen to music for free, and just pay the price of a couple of beers. It’s a great introduction to social life.”

Vignal recommends heading to pubs such as The Espy in St Kilda or to venues in the inner north such as The Tote, The Retreat, The Old Bar, The Gem, or the Merri Creek Tavern, a tiny bar where she occasionally plays with her band Exosquelette featuring “a mix of French and Australian language, like a croissant filled with barbecue shapes”.

To find out what’s happening, Vignal advises visitors to check the websites of community radio stations PBS or Triple R, where she volunteers as a producer and presenter of the weekly Things To Do Today segment.

This expertise makes her the perfect person to ask how to make the most of the city. “Melbourne is not like London or Paris, where you catch a big double-decker bus and go from monument to monument,” she says. “You [have to] experience it like a local.”

She says connecting with Melbourne Indigenous history is key if you want to really understand the city. Vignal recommends the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum and the Koorie Heritage Trust at Federation Square to get your bearings.

The Yarra River is an ideal place to start exploring. Walk, cycle, or canoe your way to Abbotsford, where you’ll find the bucolic Collingwood Children’s Farm and the heritage Abbotsford Convent, now an arts centre with studios and cafes.

A tram ride from the city takes you to St Kilda, where a walk along the beach, browsing the weekly art market, or an afternoon sipping cocktails at The Ghost of Alfred Felton, a vintage bar on the top floor of The Espy with views across the bay, are Vignal’s tips for the perfect weekend.

A city that takes its coffee seriously

Larissa Dubecki knows Melbourne food. The food writer and author has been eating her way around the city for two decades. She says Melbourne’s cafes long ago moved beyond the basics to elevate their food without “getting too fancy”. “It’s quite clever, and the best ones use beautiful produce. We’ve seen a lot of high-end chefs move into the cafe game with interesting results.”

Dubecki cites Higher Ground, a cafe in a huge heritage-listed former city powerhouse, and Auction Rooms in north Melbourne as great examples of this shift. Alternatively, Florian, in Carlton, or the three Standing Room Coffee outlets have perfected the art of the small, focused menu that is signature Melbourne.

Underpinning the food is a city obsessed with coffee, says Dubecki: “A cafe that doesn’t do decent coffee is not long for this world in Melbourne. It’s a coffee lover’s paradise.”

No one takes coffee more seriously than Patricia Coffee Brewers in Little Bourke St. “It’s like the old European espresso bars where you just stand there, slam your coffee down, and go on your way.”

Classic coffee experiences aside, the big trend in Melbourne right now is Japanese and Korean-style cafes, says Dubecki. “They’re doing brunch with a really interesting spin.” Cafes like the Korean-influenced Moon Mart in south Melbourne, and Japanese-focused ima Asa Yoru/ima Pantry in Brunswick and Cibi in Collingwood are changing ideas of what breakfast, brunch, and lunch experiences can be and Melburnians are embracing it.

The art scene

Senior curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) Shelley McSpedden grew up in Sydney but moved to Melbourne because she wanted to be in a place where “culture is embedded in everyone’s life”.

It’s part of Melbourne’s art hub encompassing the National Gallery of Victoria’s international and Australian art campuses, the Buxton Contemporary collection, ACCA’s avant-garde kunsthalle-style exhibitions, which “push the edge of new practices”, and several major theatres and concert halls.

The precinct is the first port of call for any art lover, but McSpedden also recommends a visit to the Heide Museum of Modern Art, a 6.5-hectare property once owned by art patrons John and Sunday Reed. The Reeds’ original cottage and modernist home are now exhibition spaces along with a purpose-built gallery. Worth a full exploration, Heide’s estate also includes a sculpture park; heritage, artist, and Indigenous gardens; and Heide Kitchen, where you can dine in, have a lavish high tea, or order a picnic basket.

McSpedden says the Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne, reopening in May after a six-year refurbishment, is another must-do. The opening exhibition, 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art, focuses on Indigenous knowledge and agency and features more than 400 artworks, including new commissions.

These major institutions offer world-class art experiences, but it’s the variety and depth of experiences that confirm Melbourne’s reputation as a city of art and artists. A tram ride from the Central Business District (CBD), Preston’s Gertrude Contemporary is “a hot-house of what’s happening in the arts”, says McSpedden.

She also recommends the Beaux Arts-style Nicholas Building in the city, where you can find more than 200 designers, writers, creatives, and independent businesses, and Collingwood Yards, an inner-city arts precinct in a former college with cafes, a theatre company, radio station, studios, and exhibition spaces.”

Dining... from fine to fun and fabulous

Lorcan Kan is the chef at the award-winning Etta, an intimate neighbourhood restaurant in Melbourne’s inner north. Born in Donegal and raised in Australia, Kan’s cooking is influenced by his Malaysian and Irish heritage, his Australian childhood, and the years he spent working in New York, Britain, and Bangkok.

That kind of diversity is the key to some of the most innovative food in Melbourne, believes Kan. “The intersection where [different cultures] all come together is super interesting.” At Etta, that might include a menu combining Asian and European techniques and flavours with local ingredients. “It’s all about our access to incredible produce.”

One of Kan’s dining favourites is Fitzroy’s Bar Liberty. Like many places in Melbourne, it does double duty as a wine bar and restaurant. Chef Zachary Furst brings an Eastern European sensibility to Australian produce — think pickles, soured cream, and dill.

Kan also recommends CBD newcomer Reed House, where you can find a playful take on British favourites, and, for a romantic night out, Bistra’s stylish modern menu.

Although he has a fine-dining background (including Elsternwick’s Attica, one of the ‘World’s 50 Best Restaurants’), Kan loves to return to places like Supper Inn, the Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown that hasn’t changed its menu or decor in decades (if ever), and Lutong Pinoy, a takeaway serving Filipino food at Footscray Market.

His local Malaysian, Malaymas, is the place he returns to for a dose of comfort food.

Kan says it’s the variety of options that makes Melbourne such a fascinating food destination to explore. That even applies to the pubs, he says, but he warns his Irish friends to modify their expectations. “They’re not like Irish pubs. You won’t find cheese and onion toasties. Here, you can sit in a garden, eat good food, and drink a beer in the sun.”