There’s the Greek one with no menu, where they tell you what to order. There’s the 100-year-old Bourke Street fine diner that’s a true expression of Melbourne’s Italianality. There’s the jam doughnut specialist producing – and selling – over 150 kilos of doughnuts daily. There’s the underground long-lunch specialist, where the only thing better than the fine service is the fine wine. And then there’s the spot down the alley and up the stairs serving up XO pippies, suckling pig and great big bowls of salted fish fried rice until unspeakable hours of the morning.
They are foundations of Melbourne’s great dining and drinking culture, most with at least a few decades in the trade – and some with a century – of feeding people and having a good time while doing it. Here are 10 of many Melbourne institutions that define what it means to eat and drink well in this fair city.
Jim’s Greek Tavern
There’s no menu, and no Jim for that matter, at Jim’s Greek Tavern, but that’s all part of the charm at this Collingwood institution. For over 40 years, the team at Jim’s have been serving great Greek food to Melbourne, largely removing the burden of choice and instead deploying hit after hit from the kitchen and to your table. Sizzling saganaki usually appears in the spread earlier on alongside meze en masse – tarama, fried zucchini, eggplant dips and warm bread – and then there’s usually a bounty of bits and pieces from the deep. We’re talking scallops, calamari, char-grilled whole fish and whatever else your waiter might suggest. Lamb in more ways than one usually stops the show. Lamb skewers, souvlaki, lamb cutlets, keftedes or otherwise – you’re in for a good time whichever way it goes.
A night at Jim’s will set you back around $80 per person, again, depending on what the waiter suggests. Bonus: Jim’s is pro-BYO, too.
32 Johnston St, Collingwood, 03 9419 3827, facebook.com/jimsgreektavern
Flower Drum
It’s more than 50 years old now, having hit the half-century milestone in 2025, and it’s the definition of classic, with a cadre of veteran waiters and old-school décor. But while it’s as great an institution as it gets, its longevity married with excellence, Flower Drum is no museum piece. Regulars never even look at the menu, but if you open its pages, you can see the constant subtle evolution that keeps it on top. Cantonese standard-bearers such as drunken squab, lobster omelette, Melbourne’s favourite Peking duck and a bevy of live-seafood options are presented alongside the luxed-up likes of Paspaley pearl meat sautéed with spring onion, garlic chives and asparagus, typhoon-shelter lamb chops, and a sensational take on a Scotch egg that sees a whole century egg wrapped in a mixture of quail meat and water chestnut then crumbed and fried. While a serious plunge at Flower Drum is best accomplished with a good few friends at the table, the staff are obliging with half-portions for smaller parties, and solo diners can eat (and drink) very well at the bar.
17 Market La, Melbourne, 03 9662 3655, flowerdrum.melbourne, @flower_drum
American Doughnut Kitchen
American Doughnut Kitchen has been making German-style doughnuts for around 75 years from a custom bus made from parts sourced from an aircraft scrapyard, parked up in the corner of Queen Victoria Market. It’s a combination that, on paper, sounds like it shouldn’t work, but get a bag of those lava-hot raspberry and plum jam-filled doughballs in your hand and it’ll all make sense.
F Shed, Queen Victoria Market, Queen St, Melbourne, adk1950.com.au, @adkmelbourne
South Melbourne Dim Sims
South Melbourne Dim Sims is to South Melbourne Market as the American Doughnut Kitchen is to Queen Victoria Market. Except their spherical snack is filled with cabbage, pork, beef, lamb and a secret blend of spices that has remained under wraps since they opened their stall back in 1949. Soy sauce is optional when taking yours fried, though only maniacs opt for steamed dim sims without a splash.
Stall 91, South Melbourne Market, Cecil St, South Melbourne, southmelbournemarketdimsims.com.au, @southmelbournedimsims
Abla’s
More than 40 years of Abla Amad’s djaj a riz – her delicious signature chicken and lamb-rice dish – can’t be wrong. Find it at Abla’s, Elgin Street’s excellent Lebanese restaurant.
109 Elgin St, Carlton, ablas.com.au, @ablaslebaneserestaurant
Caterina’s Cucina e Bar
Long live the long lunch. Caterina’s Cucina e Bar has been keeping the artform alive beneath Queen Street, opening exclusively for lunch Monday through Friday since 1995. Baccalà mantecato, the whipped salt-cod spread, is the unofficial house signature, but the team are just as confident with the likes of vitello tonnato, plenty of handmade pastas, capretto and other regional Italian classics. It’s sharp service. It’s white tablecloths. And it’s all backed by a wine list that runs hundreds of bottles deep – primed for exploring to its fullest and almost certain to keep you from returning to the office in time.
221 Queen St, Melbourne, 03 9670 8488, caterinas.com.au, @caterinascucinaebar
Lunch service at Caterina’s Cucina e Bar (image: courtesy of Caterina’s Cucina e Bar).
Supper Inn
Where do you procure yourself a big, salty and satisfying bowl of salted-fish fried rice at the witching hour? If nothing else but a bowl of ginger-topped chicken congee will do after a night on the beers, where do you go? And if it’s a piping-hot plate of XO-sauced pippies that’s calling you when the clock strikes 12, where are you going to get it? Supper Inn, of course, the Cantonese classic down that laneway and up those stairs, serving up the goods until 2am every night.
Level 1/15 Celestial Ave, Melbourne, 03 9663 4759, @supper.inn
Pellegrini’s
Pellegrini’s will tell you Melbourne’s first espresso machine arrived here, and there’s no disputing the influence this place has had on the city’s coffee culture. The 70-something-year-old business has stood the test of trends and trumped them time and time again, remaining as reliable for a coffee late into the evening as it is for a generous slab of lasagne at lunch. It’s Italian comfort food done right at Pellegrini’s, and whether you visited last year or last decade, it’ll likely be exactly as you remember it.
66 Bourke St, Melbourne, 03 9662 1885, @pellegrinisespressobar
Florentino
Florentino has been feeding Melbourne on Bourke Street since 1928, and while plenty has changed over its century of doing so, the grand old dame still knows how to put on a show. Head upstairs to the mural-lined dining room for polished service, a Murray cod poached in olive oil and a lamb rack made for that big, long Bourke Street lunch. Downstairs at Café Florentino is a little looser, more casual, and all about pasta… and perhaps a glass of something Italian.
Its new custodians, Edition Hospitality, the people behind Nomad and Reine & La Rue, have retained much of what makes this place so special to Melbourne, chocolate soufflé included.
80 Bourke St, Melbourne, florentino.melbourne, @florentinomelbourne
Coral trout, spanner crab, crema di zucchine and bisque served in Florentino dining room.
Stokehouse
Another of Melbourne’s most celebrated dining rooms is changing custodianship this year, with the van Haandel family calling time at Stokehouse after 36 years and passing over the keys to restaurateurs Andrew McConnell and Jo McGann this October. McConnell says “there is nowhere else like Stokehouse”, and like at least half of Melbourne, we’re thrilled to see what the next chapter looks like for the seaside stalwart.
Stokehouse, 30 Jacka Blvd, St Kilda, stokehouse.com.au, @stokehouserestaurant
But wait, there’s more. Check out some of Melbourne’s best new restaurants here.