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Dine Out: The Best New Restaurants in Melbourne in 2026
Searching for the perfect date night spot? Discover the best new restaurants in Melbourne — our handpicked edit of the city’s hottest dining openings right now.
Melbourne’s best new restaurants in 2026 are delivering one of the city’s strongest dining years yet, with standout openings across the CBD, Fitzroy, Richmond, South Yarra and beyond. This year’s arrivals span fire-led kitchens, produce-driven menus, handmade pasta, sharp wine bars and globally inspired cooking, alongside neighbourhood restaurants bringing serious technique to relaxed dining rooms.
From intimate chef-led spaces to ambitious new city openings, these are the new Melbourne restaurants worth booking now — and the places shaping how the city is eating in 2026.
Liar Liar
Braeside just gained a Japanese restaurant with ambitions well beyond dinner. Upstairs on Boundary Road, Liar Liar moves from sushi counter to late-night drinking den, with an 18-piece omakase, sashimi, premium Wagyu and a bar built around sake, cocktails and bottle service. Come Friday and Saturday, the lights drop and DJs take over from 9.30pm, carrying dinner straight through to 1am. There’s also a balcony, private dining and a $99 Saturday sushi-and-spritz session. Melbourne’s south-east now has somewhere new to dress up for.
Level 1/248-250 Boundary Road, Braeside
Côte Basque
Six years after Gimlet, Andrew McConnell and Jo McGann return to Crossley Street with Côte Basque, taking over Becco’s storied dining room for a European grill shaped by wood fire, extraordinary produce and the disciplined simplicity of Basque cooking. Victorian calamari is seasoned with its own ink, a ttoro-style fish soup draws everything from the sea, and David Blackmore beef is aged in-house before reaching the grill. Desserts turn nostalgic with chocolate soufflé and Gâteau Basque filled with Armagnac-soaked prunes, while Leanne Altmann’s wine list moves through vivid, textural European bottles. ACME has retained the green terrazzo, cherrywood panelling and tiered form, layering in leather, steel and a 12-metre mural by Magnus Reid.
From Friday 7 August, Melbourne has a new dining room with history in its bones and fire at its centre.
25 Crossley Street, Melbourne
Via Vale Trattoria
Ascot Vale has gained a decidedly dressed-up trattoria, complete with chandeliers, white tablecloths and a menu built for long dinners. Via Vale moves from duck and porcini arancini and bluefin tuna crudo to lobster squid-ink linguine, Red Hill truffle risotto and Barolo-braised beef cheek. The cooking is ambitious without losing sight of comfort, while Sunday lunch offers an excuse to order focaccia, osso buco and tiramisu before the week begins again.
385-387 Mt Alexander Road, Ascot Vale
Mule
Torquay’s restaurant era is getting harder to ignore, and Mule is the new reason Victorians should be watching the Surf Coast after dark. Chef Will Wade, Rory Benzie and Charlie Curnow have opened a Mexico-inspired dining room powered by house-made masa, tostadas, raw seafood, charred vegetables, big cuts of meat and Australia’s only charcoal al pastor. Cocktails stretch from afternoon to late, the outdoor hearth earns its keep, and Torquay has reached a new level of vibe now.
5a Zeally Bay Road, Torquay
Flores and Lately at The Angel of Malvern
The Angel of Malvern is now playing across three floors, and the upper levels are its most compelling yet. On level one, Flores pairs Mediterranean-leaning plates from Justin North and head chef Josh Rudd with a strong wine list: hand-sliced salumi, saffron prawn toast, duck gnocchi and prawn and lobster ravioli among them. Upstairs, Lately shifts the mood after dark with low lighting, walnut and stone, DJs until 3am and cocktails threaded with mandarin, black walnut, nori and jasmine. Dinner downstairs, drinks upstairs, a return home far later than planned.
641 Dandenong Road, Malvern
Common Cuts
Common Cuts has turned Russell Street into very dangerous territory for anyone with a weakness for steak, martinis and a good soundtrack. Former Kisume head chef Reki Reinantha is behind the grill, serving $28.50 charcoal-finished steak frites alongside Wagyu brisket lasagne with bone marrow and an A5 Wagyu burger that goes gloriously overboard. Japanese-leaning cocktails, house-made sauces and vinyl spinning from the DJ booth round out a city steakhouse that feels built for long lunches, late dinners and repeat visits.
Ground Floor/380 Russell Street, Melbourne
Bar Sala
Abbotsford has a new address for people who like their dinner with a little bassline. From The Mulberry Group, Bar Sala brings a dining room and separate music room to Mollison Street, with former Lene chef-owner Cam Williams leading a Mediterranean-minded menu of handmade pasta, wood-fired cooking and plates built to share.
There’s fried sourdough with ricotta and anchovy, pumpkin agnolotti in chilli brown butter and rump steak with bone marrow and green peppercorn, while groups can hand themselves over to the $85 shared chef’s menu.
Next door, the music room has its own verve: shelves of vinyl, low armchairs, cocktails, snacks and DJs Thursday through Saturday for people who understand that a record sounds better in a room full of strangers pretending not to Shazam. Part supper, part listening lounge, it is a very good argument against going straight home after dinner.
20 Mollison Street, Abbotsford
Chabela
Thornbury’s Mexican scene has a new blue-corn heartbeat. Chabela is the work of husband-and-wife duo Karla Martinez and Harry Lawrence, who met in Mexico, lived in Mexico City for five years, then came home to Melbourne with a craving they couldn’t quite shake. Martinez grew up in Coyoacán, and her kitchen moves with that same street-corner, family-table soul: elotes poached with marrow, prawn aguachile tostadas, tacos on handmade blue corn tortillas, huaraches with slow-cooked meats or epazote-laced mushrooms, and enfrijoladas de cochinita pibil drowned in black bean sauce.
Sitchu Tip: Finish with chocoflan, order the Mezcalita, and let High Street feel briefly, brilliantly, like a night market with better lighting.
832A High Street, Thornbury
Bang Bang Frankston
Bang Bang Frankston is the bayside newcomer turning Playne Street into a pan-Asian dinner-and-disco destination. The group’s largest venue seats 134 across the dining room, bar and outdoor terrace, with executive chef Dan Poyner sending out Sichuan fried eggplant, 12-hour brisket gua bao, pork belly, butter chicken curry and generous Feed Me menus.
Come Friday and Saturday, dinner slips into After Dark: DJs, cocktails, prawn toast and chicken bao carrying the room through to 1am. Frankston, your late-night plans just got considerably better.
24 Playne Street, Frankston
Yamamoto Udon Izakaya
Yamamoto Udon Izakaya puts handmade udon at the centre of QV’s after-dark Japanese playbook. Each strand is rolled by hand at its Bourke Street sibling, then carried into soup udon, curry udon, tan tan, mapo tofu and rare Himokawa ribbons, wide enough to make ramen look underdressed. The rest of the table keeps moving: beef tataki, takoyaki, oysters, unagi don, M9 Wagyu, $14 cocktails, chuhai and Suntory on tap.
Come for the handmade udon, stay for the izakaya energy.
Shop QS029, Level 2, QV Square, Melbourne
Sama
Sama has given Fairfield’s Grandview Hotel a new Lebanese heartbeat, and the family history is felt almost immediately. The front bar stays easygoing, while the dining room slips into something moodier: charcoal smoke in the air, arak on the table, Lebanese wine from the Bekaa Valley and the generous logic of food designed to be passed around.
Rumi alumni helped shape the concept, while chef David Gonnella’s menu moves from labne and black-garlic baba ghanoush to lamb nayyeh scattered with pistachio and rose petals, chicken shish with toum and six-hour beef cheek moghrabieh. The smartest move is to order broadly, pour something Lebanese and surrender to the table.
Sitchu Tip: Don’t skip the hummus with lamb awarma, pine nuts and Aleppo chilli. Silky, deeply savoury and warm with spice, it is one of the best things we’ve eaten in Melbourne this year.
429 Heidelberg Road, Fairfield
Roma
Roma feels less like a new Melbourne restaurant than a Roman trattoria you could swear has been there for 40 years. The enormous antipasto table sets the tone, surrounded by green marble, chequered stone, vintage Italian chandeliers and a white lattice ceiling borrowed in spirit from Fellini’s beloved Trattoria al Moro. Even the cutlery has a Roman backstory.
Then Matt Wilkinson starts feeding you. There’s trippa alla romana bubbling in tomato and wine, bitter puntarelle slicked with anchovy, handmade ravioli, whole fish selected from ice-filled drawers, chops from the grill and the wonderful possibility of surrendering to whatever appears from the antipasto table first. The wine list digs unusually deep into Lazio, with Con Christopoulos importing bottles rarely seen in Australia.
Christopoulos, Wilkinson and Giovanni Patane have nailed the harder thing: not simply the food of Rome, but its particular way of eating. Generous, noisy, unhurried and completely uninterested in whatever Italian dish happens to be trending on TikTok.
120 Collins Street, Melbourne
Udon Izakaya Tanukiya
Some dishes follow you home. After a recent trip to Japan, our Melbourne editor returned mildly obsessed with udon: the thick, silken, springy noodles served with little ceremony and immense care in everyday noodle shops. So the arrival of Udon Izakaya Tanukiya in Fitzroy feels especially thrilling. From chef Fujio Tamura, the Johnston Street izakaya centres on kamaage udon, with Kagawa-style noodles served in kombu water and dipped into a bonito-rich broth, sharpened with ginger, sesame, spring onion and fresh wasabi. Tempura lands crisp, the sake list waits neatly in the wings, and Melbourne’s ramen fixation finally has a worthy rival.
Sitchu Tip: Order the kamaage udon tempura set.
256 Johnston Street, Fitzroy
Spaghetti Club
Spaghetti Club has landed on Swan Street with candlelight, white cloths and a faded orange recipe book at its heart. The Southern Italian trattoria from MAMAS Dining Group takes its cue from co-founder Lucas Gugliandolo’s late Nonno, who cooked across Sicily before moving to Melbourne and filled that book with the pastry, pasta and family recipes that later shaped Monday-night dinners.
Head chef Michael Fleming carries that inheritance into house-made pasta and live-fire cooking, with cacio e pepe arancini, spaghetti vongole with bottarga, provolone-stuffed involtini and Nonno’s lasagne among the reasons to settle in. Cannoli, zeppole, Italian lagers and Negronis take care of the rest.
There are plenty of new Italians in Melbourne. This one has a family history you can actually taste.
95 Swan Street, Richmond
Julietta
South Yarra has a new neighbourhood Italian, and this one comes from the team behind Mamasita. Julietta is a 35-seat trattoria and wine bar on Toorak Road, built for handmade pasta, pavement spritzes and Negronis under a little 1970s Italian glow.
Executive chef Jimmy Garside keeps pasta at the centre, with fazzoletti, radiatori and other lesser-seen shapes made in the tiny kitchen, alongside burrata, cold cuts and hulking Wagyu-and-sausage meatballs with buffalo ricotta and sugo. The drinks are equally persuasive: Italian and new-wave Australian wines, plenty by the glass, plus five original spins on the Negroni from Eduardo Conde.
It has the sort of looseness you want from a neighbourhood Italian: drop in for a glass and a plate of pasta, accidentally stay for dessert.
220 Toorak Road, South Yarra
Frenchie
Frenchie has swept onto Collins Street with the confidence of a Parisian who knows they look good. Almost everything is $14, from share plates to cocktails, giving dinner the dangerous ease of ordering “just one more”. A mirrored staircase leads into a low-lit room of velvet, marble and red glow, where beef cheek, cordon bleu meatballs and duck confit arrive between dirty martinis and Champagne.
It is playful, fast-moving and very easy to overcommit to in the best possible way. Melbourne may have found its new weeknight vice.
Shop 1/15 Collins Street, Melbourne
Garfield
Garfield has brought a nostalgic, slightly mischievous energy to Lygon Street since opening earlier this year. Dion Hall’s room nods to retro Italian pizzerias without slipping into pastiche, with granite, timber, steel and warm light setting the tone.
The menu, led by culinary director Karen Martini and executive chef Mark Glenn, gets more interesting the closer you look. Head pizzaiolo Sangsub Ha uses a Tokyo-stretch method to create light, charred bases, while toppings move between familiar and playful. The signature Garfield channels lasagne with meatballs, tomato, béchamel, basil and parmesan; the Tokyo Bianco goes smoky and briny with raw tuna, shiso and finger lime. Pidapipo soft serve next door handles dessert.
Quick, casual and built for repeat visits, Garfield feels completely at home in Carlton.
297 Lygon Street, Carlton
From polished tasting menus to clever neighbourhood gems, the restaurants opening in 2026 are setting the tone for Melbourne’s next chapter in dining. Book the places calling your name, revisit your favourites and keep exploring the ideas reshaping the city’s palate. For more ways to eat your way across Melbourne, browse our guides to bayside dining and Italian favourites loved by locals.
