The Best New Restaurants in Melbourne in 2026

Melbourne’s best new restaurants in 2026 have one thing in common: they know exactly what they are. A 23-seat room devoted to gomtang. A Tokyo ramen cult built around chicken paitan. A taqueria that starts with a tonne of Gippsland corn and a volcanic-stone molino. A Minang institution carrying more than five decades of nasi Padang history to Queen Street without translating itself for Australian tastes.

That specificity is the story of Melbourne dining right now. The openings with the most electricity are drilling deeper, not wider: Greek-Cypriot family cooking in Brunswick, hand-cut Korean noodles behind a steam-fogged Abbotsford window, Sri Lankan spice in an old Canterbury post office, Roman abundance on Collins Street and wood-fire cooking threaded with jang in South Yarra. Technique is everywhere, but the theatre around it has shrunk. What remains is personality, provenance and a city increasingly happy to let a restaurant be utterly itself.

These are the new Melbourne restaurants we’d book first in 2026.

Julietta

South Yarra needed this. Julietta is Joss Jenner-Leuthart’s 35-seat neighbourhood Italian, with Mamasita executive chef Jimmy Garside working out of a tiny kitchen and burgundy banquettes glowing under vintage brass lights. Pasta is made daily, from green-peppercorn cacio e pepe to radiatori with spanner crab, but the Sicilian Bluefin Tuna Crudo has become our fixation: superb tuna, good olive oil, tiny capers and onion, left almost entirely alone because it doesn’t need rescuing. We ordered it again instead of dessert. A Fig Negroni under the candlelight sealed the deal. One of Melbourne’s new openings we keep wanting to return to.

220 Toorak Road, South Yarra

The Havelock Place

Canterbury’s old post office has slipped rather beautifully into its second life as Havelock Place. Panda Gunawardena and Bhagya Withana looked to the Sri Lankan dining they loved at London’s Hoppers and Raffles Singapore, then carried that sense of occasion into a room of teak, rattan, stained glass and high old ceilings. The menu moves just as elegantly: crisp beef pan rolls, black pork curry dark with roasted spice and tamarind, lamb cutlets with green sambol and curried kiwi, chilli bay lobster with godhamba roti waiting to catch every last streak of sauce. By the time the hoppers arrive, the whole place feels a little transportive.

206 Canterbury Road, Canterbury

Paloma Pizza Bar

Paloma Pizza Bar has taken over the old Zia’s, a place brothers Matt and Kael Sahely ate at as kids, and turned the childhood landmark into somewhere they might now stay late themselves. Forty-eight-hour dough carries sopressa, hot honey and stracciatella; vodka rigatoni, handmade gnocchi and whole flounder in lemon butter make a proper dinner of it. Original archways and high ceilings meet dark timber and low light, and as dusk settles the music lifts, the Sicilian Palomas start appearing and takeaway pizza begins to feel like a missed opportunity.

93-95 Riversdale Road, Hawthorn

Patris

Patris takes its name from the ship that carried Stella Michael’s mother to Melbourne in 1963, and the Brunswick dining room feels almost like being invited into the family home. Mismatched wicker and velveteen chairs, books, plants and Michalis Michael’s paintings soften the little Barkly Street shopfront while Michael and Johnny Hasan send out Greek-Cypriot food with the same intimacy: halloumi with Commandaria-poached figs, market fish, lamb and their wedding-cake dessert, ekmek kataifi. Warm, and already wonderfully lived-in, this is easily one of our favourite new restaurants in Melbourne.

140 Barkly Street, Brunswick

Super Taco

Crossley Street has acquired ten seats, one spinning trompo and a very good reason to abandon whatever you thought you were having for lunch. At Super Taco, chef Jose Angel Delgado Juárez, who previously ran a restaurant in Hidalgo before landing at Rockpool, keeps things gloriously tight: four tacos, tortillas pressed in-house each day and a salsa bar built from family recipes. Al pastor catches fire beneath a crown of pineapple, flathead arrives crisp with poblano crema, and whatever heat you want next is entirely up to you. Order a frozen mezcalita, find a perch if luck is on your side, and settle into one of the CBD’s smallest, buzziest new rooms.

Shop 8/26 Crossley Street, Melbourne

Wee Nam Kee

Wee Nam Kee has brought its famous Hainanese chicken rice to Melbourne, opening its first local outpost in the CBD. The Singaporean favourite is known for tender steamed and roasted chicken served with fragrant rice infused with pandan, garlic and ginger, alongside house-made chilli and ginger sauces.

The chicken rice is the main event, but there’s plenty worth adding to the table, from sizzling tofu and prawns to Hong Kong-style steamed kailan with oyster sauce, plus noodles if you feel like switching things up. With its casual setting, generous menu and halal offering, Wee Nam Kee is an easy addition to the CBD rotation, whether you’re dropping in for a quick lunch or settling in for dinner.

303 La Trobe St, Melbourne CBD

Holly’s Bar & Kitchen

Ringwood has entered its tiny-martini era. Holly’s Bar & Kitchen is the new Italian-ish wine bar from the Budgie crew, and the menu has enough eccentricity to stop it becoming another burrata-and-Negroni exercise. Brown-butter cacio e pepe gnocchi is joined by chilli-crab risotto and a chicken schnitzel wearing fettuccine Alfredo on top like a particularly fabulous hat. Then come the $10 mini martinis, Fin Wines by the glass and cannoli for the road. Melbourne’s east has waited long enough for this sort of thing, and we’re just as excited.

2/166 Maroondah Highway, Ringwood

The Frog Club

Is this Melbourne’s answer to the old-school Hollywood restaurant? We’re inclined to say yes. The Frog Club has landed on Chapel Street with plush booths, martinis thrown behind the bar, DJs spinning jazz and disco and a full kitchen firing until midnight, seven nights a week.

The menu reads like something out of a very glamorous fever dream: caviar tarts, prawn cocktails, lobster frites, Wagyu cooked over charcoal and a towering plateau de fruits de mer, followed by a make-your-own sundae. Helmed by hospitality veterans James McBride and Marc Gurman, with former Rosetta executive chef Angel Fernandez leading the kitchen, it channels the grand old New York steakhouse and French brasserie through a distinctly Melbourne lens.

Come for a martini. Stay until midnight. This one has all the makings of a Chapel Street institution.

163-165 Chapel Street, Windsor 

Clover Cottage

Berwick has one of its grand old institutions back. After sitting dormant for almost a decade, Clover Cottage has reopened its gates, chandeliers and magnificent old gardens for a new era under The Recreation and Paradise Valley Hotel’s Mark Protheroe and Katrina Bruckner. The c.1890 estate now houses two ways to settle in: an all-day brasserie spilling onto the terrace and The Restaurant, its more dressed-up sibling serving beef tartare, osso buco, magret de canard and dessert from a roaming cheese trolley. Old-school dining has rarely looked so appealing.

54 Manuka Road, Berwick

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.

25 Crossley Street, Melbourne

Ginza Kagari

One of 2026’s most meticulous arrivals began with eight counter seats down a Ginza alley. Makoto Iwata opened Kagari in 2013, earning Michelin Bib Gourmands in 2016 and 2017 for tori paitan: chicken broth emulsified until it eats closer to silken potage than tonkotsu. Melbourne’s soup base is still made in Japan, then finished here with sous-vide chicken and seasonal vegetables arranged with almost kaiseki-like care. Order the egg-topped rice for stirring through the last of the broth. This is ramen worth crossing town for.

256 Russell Street, Melbourne

Phở Lệ

Melbourne has plenty of pho; far fewer bowls arrive carrying more than half a century of muscle memory. Saigon institution Phở Lệ, founded in 1970, has opened its first Australian outpost on Elizabeth Street, and pleasingly little has been lost in transit. The southern-style broth cooks for eight to ten hours with cinnamon, star anise, cardamom and ginger, coming out deep, beefy and sweeter than its northern counterpart, ready for rare beef, brisket, fatty brisket, tendon or meatballs. Even the blue-and-white bowls have travelled from Bát Tràng’s centuries-old ceramic village. There are spring rolls and excellent salted coffee, but this is a restaurant built around the thing it has spent decades getting right.

500 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

Santito

Santito starts with the tortilla, as any taqueria worth its salt should. After plans to import Mexican heirloom corn hit a biosecurity wall, the team found white corn in Gippsland, bought a tonne and installed a volcanic-stone molino to grind it in-house. The resulting masa is pressed and grilled to order, then wrapped around al pastor, confit-beef suadero or house longaniza. Squash-blossom quesadillas and mezcal Margaritas follow. Melbourne has no shortage of tacos; few begin with this much devotion to the corn.

174 Smith Street, Collingwood

Matsuyama

Matsuyama was meant to become a smoky, late-night izakaya. Then charcoal restrictions intervened, and Kenny Chiu changed course. His permanent Prahran Market counter now runs on market hours, with chicken heart, liver, skin and thigh hitting the grill alongside M9 Wagyu, fat sandos and bento. Sit on a red crate, order a cold Asahi and let Nas or Wu-Tang handle the soundtrack. The charcoal may be gone, but the scrappy spirit that made the original pop-up such a hit is very much intact.

Shop 809-3/163 Commercial Road, South Yarra

Gaon Gamasot Gomtang

Two enormous 240-litre iron cauldrons sit at the heart of Gaon, a little Carnegie soup house from former Nobu chef Hyunjin Kim and Kyung Lee. One turns beef, ginger and ginseng into beautifully clear gomtang; the other takes bones through a days-long simmer for milky seolleongtang, both arriving deliberately unseasoned so you can finish the bowl yourself. On Thursdays, there is jangeotang made with live Tasmanian freshwater eel. Simple food, technically gruelling, cooked with absolute conviction.

Shop 2/23 Koornang Road, Carnegie

Hoppy Dumpling

There is excellent logic to putting thick-skinned Dongbei dumplings next to cold beer. Gary Zhao has built Hoppy Dumpling around exactly that pleasure: Wagyu potstickers and juicy chicken, prawn and corn dumplings, followed by xiao long bao or a bowl of Sichuan dandan noodles. Rocky Ridge and Co-Conspirators run through the taps, with pu’er and Dragon Well tea for slower lunches, while red tiles, an open kitchen window and a help-yourself sauce station make it an easy Chapel Street proposition for lunch that turns into another round.

Ground 015/670 Chapel Street, South Yarra

Mudo

Mudo makes “Korean-Australian” feel far too blunt a description. Happy Cho works Korean flavour into the bones of contemporary wood-fire cooking: oysters sharpened with kimchi granita and nashi, Wagyu tartare with whipped tahini, gnocchi glossed in gochujang butter, and market fish landing from the flames with doenjang beurre blanc. Cho’s kitchens have included Nobu, Mr Miyagi and Benu, and that experience shows in how little gets overworked. Ferments deepen, fire chars, jang hums underneath; meanwhile, a soju-heavy cocktail at the bar keeps dinner from becoming too serious.

133 Commercial Road, South Yarra

Sagye

Sagye has taken one of Korean cooking’s most elemental dishes and built an entire restaurant around getting it exactly right. Levi Eun’s 23-seat room is devoted to gomtang, a clear Wagyu broth made with brisket, shank and chuck-eye roll, then ladled toryeom-style over rice so the grains soak up every bit of it. Pork mandoo opens proceedings; kimchi, rice, broth and barley tea keep coming without charge. The kitchen can move almost 100 kilograms of beef a day. Five dishes, one obsession, enormous confidence.

250 Russell Street, Melbourne

Chun’s Kalguksu

By lunchtime, Chun’s front window is fogged with steam, diners bent over bowls as sisters Sharon and Joanna Chun roll and knife-cut noodles in the kitchen. Their parents opened Hand Made Noodle in Strathfield, Sydney, in 2005; two decades later, the sisters have brought that family craft south. Order the kalguksu with clams and zucchini in a clear anchovy broth, with fresh, garlicky kimchi alongside. Soft, chewy, hot and deeply comforting, it makes this tiny Victoria Street shop feel like more than enough.

285A Victoria Street, Abbotsford

Sederhana

Sederhana has not arrived in Melbourne with the edges filed off. Founded in Jakarta in 1972, the Minang institution has brought its nasi Padang format to Queen Street with at least 25 dishes in rotation: ayam pop fried in coconut oil, cassava-leaf curry, sambal-laced vegetables and a dark, slow-cooked beef rendang built from a 20-spice paste prepared in Jakarta. Point at the counter, load the plate, let the gravies run together. Fifty-four years on, Sederhana still tastes entirely like itself.

207 Queen Street, Melbourne

Voula’s

Voula’s has given Hawthorn East the Greek night out it was missing. Nick Flaounas named the 160-seat taverna after his mother, who compared pastitsio notes with Athens-raised chef Manos Krasadakis to arrive at the version now bubbling beneath its béchamel crust. Elsewhere, seafood comes off the grill, meat platters crowd the table and saganaki appears four ways, including one doused in Metaxa and set alight tableside. Upstairs, whitewashed walls, blue accents, a rooftop and live Greek music make another briny Martini very hard to resist.

644 Burwood Road, Hawthorn East

Dingo Ate My Taco

Six years after Dingo Ate My Taco first started slinging tacos from a truck, its permanent Abbotsford home has finally put down roots. The new Dingo goes straight back to the team’s Tex-Mex beginnings: house-pressed tortillas filled with brisket, egg and cheese at breakfast, chorizo with Oaxacan cheese, carnitas and fried avocado later on, plus the quesabirria that built much of its following. Dirty horchata, Micheladas and mezcal keep the table noisy, while red stools, steel and diner booths give the Marfa-inspired room just enough desert-town attitude. After years on wheels, Dingo finally has somewhere to stay awhile.

272 Johnston Street, Abbotsford

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

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

Melbourne’s 2026 restaurant class is still growing, and we’ll keep this guide updated as new openings prove they belong here. For a narrower brief, head to our guides to Melbourne’s best Italian restaurants and bayside dining. And keep this page close. In a city that treats a restaurant opening like neighbourhood news, the list never stays still for long.