Chris Yuille is a food stylist from Melbourne whose work sits at the intersection of food, art and design. After beginning his career in professional kitchens, he transitioned into commercial food styling for film and television, working with leading creative brands across the globe. Yuille’s work combines technical precision with humour and imagination, transforming historic culinary references into contemporary visuals – particularly through his experiments with gelatine, a technique he put into practice for Melbourne Food & Wine Festival’s 2025 campaign, among others.
Here’s Yuille on where he’s eating and drinking when he’s not experimenting with gelatine.
My local is Fitzroy Kebabs. I like to visit alone, in my pyjamas, at about 11pm on a Friday, surrounded by silly, wasted teenagers peaking too early on what seems like their first big night out.
The best new thing I’ve found is Little Rose. Go Rosheen Kaul, go! Seafood quenelles in a lobster bisque split with Sichuan chilli oil. It’s like she peered into the depths of my soul with this dish. I wish I got to try the choux farci she did on MasterChef. I used to work on that show and every season I missed was a season she appeared on. So unfair.
There’s no better value in the city than the mixed ham banh mi at Fresh Chilli Deli, Sunshine. It’s hard to fathom that in 2026 one can still spend single digits on something with so much flavour and so much labour behind it. It’s folly to label any venue as making the ‘best banh mi in Melbourne’, but Fresh Chilli Deli is my personal favourite. Partially because it warrants a trip to Sunshine, which also means coming home with a bag full of, I don’t know, winged beans, the most pristine dragonfruit anyone has ever seen and a giant slab of pomegranate leather, perhaps.
And I wish more people would experience the excellence of a plate of lasagne at Il Carretto, served piping hot with surplus Bolognese spilling over the edges, covered with a mound of table parmesan and loads of olive oil and pepper, accompanied by complimentary bread in an old-school wicker basket, each slice slathered with an entire packet of spreadable butter, consumed in what I believe to be Melbourne’s most eccentric dining room, decorated with decades’ worth of inimitable family photos and a floor-to-ceiling mural of Pavarotti on the night he came in for dinner. No dining experience in this city can lift spirits better than this.
When I want to celebrate an occasion with a special meal, I go to Flower Drum. It’s my birthday tradition. I’m not sure there’s much I can say about Flower Drum that hasn’t been said, but you really get what you give there; if the front of house senses you’re in for a good time, they’ll give it to you. Apple swans, sparklers and “happy birthday” written in chocolate sauce. Or a stern waiter watching over you to ensure you finish a very generous pour of Kweichow Moutai in one go. “Baijiu: never sip!” Those words have stuck with me.
When I want to show off the city to friends from out of town, I take them to Queen Victoria Market (preferably on a weekday, because it’s a bit much on weekends), then I show off Melbourne’s recent pub renaissance and our wealth of excellent fusion food. I believe Melbourne is Australia’s home of markets, pubs and fusion food. I know the term ‘fusion’ is very much passé, but it really aptly describes many of Melbourne’s most interesting restaurants. Do I have to say sorry?
My favourite place to load up on supplies is Minh Phat, without a doubt. It’s a museum – an archive – as much as it is a grocery store. The receipt from my last shop was a metre long. I’m not joking; I have the photo to prove it. Did you know that banana essence is amyl? I did, thanks to Minh Phat. While we’re here, can anyone explain how Asian grocers always seem to sell mushrooms for so much cheaper than everywhere else?
My defining food moment in Melbourne was driving to Footscray during lockdown, eating a meatball sub from Roman’s Original (RIP, gone too soon) and drinking a Vietnamese iced coffee in my car seat. Fuck yeah.
If there was one thing I could change about eating and drinking in Melbourne, it would be… I’d love to nip AI-generated menu photos in the bud. The pixelated, garish, obscure aesthetic of repurposed stock imagery is magnificent to me. Does anyone remember that photo of a flaming foil-wrapped container on the menu in front of Rize BBQ on Brunswick Street? So weird, so wonderful.
But the thing I hope never changes here is, honestly, Il Carretto. I already lost Istanbul Kebabs and Old Raffles Place; I just couldn’t handle losing Il Carretto.
See more of Chris’s work at chrisyuille.com and @chrisyuille, or visit sixteenthings.com to explore his recent exhibition Sixteen Things to Do With a Lemon.