Melbourne A to Z City Guide
If Sydney is the peacock—adjusting its feathers in the reflection of the harbour—then Melbourne is the brooding younger sibling who reads Singer at the dinner table and insists on pouring the wine properly. It’s erudite, ambitious, navigable by trails of coffee grounds—and the birthplace of Aesop. Some think it’s all philosophy and Fitzcarraldo Editions in our offices over here—and, at times, they would be right. But at other times, it’s filo pastry at Jim’s Greek Tavern and laps at Fitzroy Pool. As unabashed Francophiles, Paris may have shaped our mind, but Melbourne—Naarm, as the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people, Traditional Owners of the land, named it—gave us our heart.
Had we twenty-four hours, we’d hope it were during summer, when the day stretches well into the night. We’d start in Fitzroy and wind our way to St Kilda via Richmond: coffee and eggs at Napier Quarter; a stop by Aesop Fitzroy, designed by Clare Cousins; SPF lotion in pocket, a pause at the Conservatory to admire the hydrangeas. Then across the river to the MCG, where Shane Warne’s ‘flipper’ still hangs in the air; lunch at Thai Food Station, and a slow stroll through Fern Gully at Botanic Gardens. By dusk, we’d be at Cicciolina’s back bar in St Kilda, discussing the Saints’ footy score over spaghetti vongole and a Negroni, as the trams rattle on by.
A to Z list
A. Abbotsford Convent
The sisters have flown, but their good taste lingers. Lose yourself in orchards and cloisters, greet the goats at the Children’s Farm, then trot to Cam’s Kiosk for pasta or Julie’s for garden-to-table reverie.
1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford VIC 3067, Australia
B. Books, Books, Books
Melbourne files its pride beneath the covers: Garner’s clear eyes, Singer’s ethics. Discover first editions at The Paperback Bookshop, cookbooks at Books for Cooks, design rarities at Metropolis.
Paperback Bookshop 60 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
C. Coburg Drive-In Cinema
An asphalt time machine—complement with dashboard mezze from Half Moon Café, naturally.
155 Newlands Rd, Coburg North VIC 3058, Australia
D. The Dome at the State Library
There is a professional shush-er; a quietly powerful vocation.
328 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
E. Espresso
A proud local obsession. Start with one over Cibi’s Japanese breakfast. Napier Quarter’s is expertly balanced and should you stick around for dinner, the Negronis are lethal. Then there’s Market Lane for brisk consistency, while it’s hallowed grounds at Cathedral Coffee. When baristocracy leaves you cold-brewding, revitalise yourself with a simple espresso at Mediterranean Wholesalers; Italians, after all, brought coffee to Melbourne.
mediterraneanwholesalers.com.au
F. Fernet
The drink of choice for trustworthy bartenders. Ask one where they go, and they’ll point you to Monty’s—run by Monty, the eponymous publican who makes foreigners feel local, who knows that a good cocktail is equal parts sociology and psychology with not a drop of mixology. And that hospitality is not alchemy—but business, conducted with grace, one drink at a time. Then it’s Siglo for balcony theatre right by the new Apollo Inn, a 30-seat cocktail bar; and Bar Olo for the nightcap you didn’t know you needed. Pubs, of course, are our native language. Your closest RSL dishes up unfussy food, often over trivia (something of a national sport), alongside country pours of white wine and pints of VB (which arguably has one of the best advertisements of all time). Supper Inn for the after-hours eaters; Ritz-Carlton Bar for the vistas.
G. Gardens, Royal Botanic
When the skyline crowds your thoughts, flee to a Fern Gully or Tropical Glass House. Locals refer to it as ‘the Tan’: perhaps there is beauty in brevity.
Birdwood Avenue, Melbourne 3004, Australia
H. Holding the Man
Tim Conigrave’s memoir of school-tie devotion and sorrow—required reading for the city’s emotional floor plan and most beloved sport.
I. Ice Cream
Kariton Sorbetes. The 7642nd island of the Philippines may well be in Footscray. Go for Ube—lilac thunder in a cone—or Taho. Wherever you are, it’s worth the detour.
50 Leeds St, Footscray VIC 3011, Australia
J. Jewels at the Hellenic Museum
Ancient opulence and a quiet courtyard to rest. Not interested in Hellenic culture? You will be after this.
280 William St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
K. Keepsakes
You don’t know you need a hand-forged iron hook until you’re holding it. Hub General Store has it. Mondopiero brings a world of taste to Brunswick Street, and Aesop Fitzroy will have you lathered with everything else—a trinity of merchants that are in spritzing distance of each other.
L. Liquid Architecture
Not a gallery, not a festival—an ear-training exercise. Sound staged as séance. Follow their programme.
M. MESS (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio)
A chapel of circuitry. Twist a knob, summon the future that never quite arrived, leave humming. M also must stand (or sit down quietly awaiting the waiter’s attention) for McConnell, Andrew—a chef and restaurateur who conducts, rather than cooks. His restaurants (Builders Arms Hotel, Cumulus, Cutler, Gimlet at Cavendish House, Marion Wine Bar, Supernormal) and butcher’s counter are all elegantly orchestrated, and among the city’s finest.
N. Neglected
Your hair, that is. Two cutters come to mind—both fathers of the follicle: Jim at Helluva and Frank at Fur. For colour, visit Madison; for brows and make-up: Rose Letho.
O. Op-Shops
Victoria’s thrift cathedrals. Anti-minimalism at its finest—start in the suburbs then work your way in.
P. Pier, Brighton Baths
Sea-water pool, zero chlorine, wooden slats warm as toast.
251 Esplanade, Brighton, Victoria, 3186
brightonbathshealthclub.com.au
Q. Queued Stations
Stack local broadcasts—RRR’s eclectic chatter, PBS’s jazz labyrinth, mixes from SKYLAB, and Awaye! or All in the Mind on ABC Radio National.
R. Robin Boyd House
Architecture that converses. A great Australian export and manual for harmonious living. For local architects, Studio 11:11 and March Studio continue the lineage superbly.
290 Walsh St, South Yarra VIC 3141
S. Smoking Ceremony (Wurundjeri)
An ancient welcome: no spectacle, all spirit. Stand still, be cleansed, listen.
T. The Tote
Amplifiers howl, carpet sticks, legends hatch nightly. They tried to close it; the guitars refused.
67-71 Johnston St, Collingwood VIC 3066
U. Umami
Three compass points for appetite, each with a unique flavour: La Pinta (Basque-Melburnian mingle), France-Soir (for homesick Francophiles), Soi 38 (Thai noodle nirvana).
V. Velvet Seats at the Astor
Double features, single-screen grandeur. Eclipse Cinema, the newcomer, shows auteur cinema, and promise.
1 Chapel St, St Kilda VIC 3182, Australia
W. Wheeler Centre
If literature has a lobby, this is it: panels, launches, debates—headquarters for the written word.
176 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000
X. XO Sauce on Turnips at Shark Fin Inn
An institution. Cantonese dumplings made in-house daily, and all the other reassuring classics. For serious suburban grazing, try Ramen and Dumpling House on Koornang Road, or Shanxi Lee’s Kitchen in Box Hill.
50 Little Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
ramen-dumpling-house-carnegie.wheree.com
Y. Yarra River, Dights Falls
Where water tumbles, magpies patrol and deadlines dissolve.
112A Trenerry Cres, Abbotsford VIC 3067, Australia
Z. Zips, Slips & Rips
After thrift adventures, savour the curated heights: Bruce, dot Comme, Reina, Martin Fella. For something a little less worn, head to heed the counsel of Rosanna Hall, who manages the Comme des Garçons boutique.
The city through the senses
Listen
Can you hear it? The morning magpies gossiping outside your window, their stories carried through ghost gums, past those malignant plane trees that wreak havoc on allergy sufferers, all of it caught on a Port Phillip breeze. Beneath them, the familiar bell and clatter of the number 12 tram tracing Victoria Street. And under it all, something else stirs—a distant rumble, a bassline tuning itself awake, a guitar riff unfolding itself to life on a fretboard.
Behind two noise-cancelling doors, inside Bakehouse Studios—the creation of Fitzroyalty, Helen Marcou and Quincy McLean—music is always in rehearsal. Since the late 1980s, its corridors have echoed with the making of things: bands beginning, legends returning, the raw grammar of noise turning into song. Nick Cave, The Drones, Courtney Barnett, and countless others have frequented and left their frequencies here.
It is the sound of a city clearing its throat—sometimes sirening, at other times shrieking—a plural hum, an anthem that belongs, unmistakably, to Melbourne. Take some of it home with a trip to Naturestrip or Greville Records.
Taste
There is so much to digest in Melbourne—foremost, the warmth of its residents, and their calorically questionable obsession with café breakfasts. You might begin with Devonshire tea at Ripponlea Gardens, dim sum at Crystal Jade, or spaghetti from one of the Italian Trinity: Mario’s, Tiamo, and Pellegrini’s (there’s still debate over who’s the Father and who’s the Son, but all of their spirits are holy).
But before all that, it’s worth ruminating on the thought that the best way to know a city, is through its markets. In fact, all airports should deposit you straight from the cabin onto a conveyor belt leading into one—so you may see, smell, touch, and taste your way to belonging. Food is empathy made possible—crossing borders by way of hands, and stomachs, and connecting our collective appetites. To truly know a place is to be held, like a hand, a hug, or a sandwich.
From the boreks and bratwursts of Queen Victoria Market, to bolani from Kabul Kitchen in Dandenong, and bánh mì from Nhu Ngọc Bakery in Footscray, every market in Melbourne, and nearly every country they represent, bears a hand-held carbohydrate with a filling carried like a national baton in the great global snack race. But the crown belongs to a quiet contender—understated, unequivocally Australian: the fish sandwich from Evening Star, at South Melbourne Market on a Sunday. A piece of fish barbecued with sumac and onions, a little lettuce, a kiss of chilli, all pressed into a toasted roll.
It is a digestion-defying grab-and-go, lingering in the memory of your ‘second brain’ long after you have left the market behind.
Smell
There is no better way to understand Melbourne than through the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. Their connection to Country is not metaphor, but memory: an unbroken relationship with the land and its inhabitants.
On a Wurundjeri Cultural Walking Tour, guests are guided through the rhythms of the land and its stories. It is a sensorial and historical map unto itself, where scent becomes a guide as much as sight or sound. Eucalyptus along the Merri Creek Trail, the damp moss and smoke of Dights Falls, even the faint salt carried inland beside the MCG: these are traces of an older Melbourne. There is a lesson here: to smell is to listen, to the land, and to those who have always known it best.
Touch
There is a phrase this place often brings to mind: to touch the earth lightly—a sentiment that draws, with humility, from the deep ecological wisdom of First Nations philosophies, where care for Country means respect and reciprocity.
Melbourne, too, asks for that kind of touch. Its parks—Carlton Gardens, Albert Park, and Royal Park—offer soft grass and shade enough for lingering, with public barbecues awaiting a patchwork of supermarket snags. The city asks to be felt as much as seen: hot pavement under bare toes at Caulfield Swimming Pool; wet clay thrown at Slow Clay Centre; the pale, textured, flower-shaped ceramics of Claudia Lau (graduate of the former); autumn leaves crunching underfoot.
Indeed, the real discovery of Melbourne—or any land—is that it does not require to be touched by us, but rather, held.
See
Melbourne has many places to point your pupils—and art is always a fine appertiser to nature, especially when it rains, which in this city it invariably will. Spend an afternoon at ACCA, the Koorie HeritageTrust in Federation Square, Oddaný Gallery, or aasleagh123, each a fine spot to lose track of time.
But a few sights deserve particular mention, and who better to reveal them than local cinematographers Coco and Maximilian? We imagine a film of theirs tracing the city’s mid-century heart: Robin Boyd’s Walsh Street House, an intervention in intimacy and restraint; Orica House (formerly ICI House), the first building in Melbourne allowed to exceed the national height limits; MacFarland Library at Ormond College; and the Cardinal Knox Centre, whose brutalist calm feels almost monastic. And, of course, Heide Museum of Modern Art—its house, gardens, and the legacy of Sunday and John Reed.
Sundry suggestions
Australian etiquette
Vegemite: A dark, salty relic of national identity. To be spread thin, like a rumour—89% butter, 11% Vegemite, or it’s culinary treason.
Barbecues: Australia’s unofficial parliament—held on back decks, with tongs as gavels. If uninvited, head to Bunnings, the sacred temple of hardware, and procure a democracy sausage with onion and tomato sauce.
SPF: Stands for Sun Protection Factor, or, more accurately, Survival Per Forecast—because in Australia, the sun doesn’t shine, it interrogates.
The basics, non-negotiables and necessities
Accommodation: Napier Quarter. United Places
Bakery: A1. Baker Bleu. Loafer
Dry cleaners: Brown Gouge
Grocery: Queen Victoria Market. Footscray Market. Preston Market. Dandenong Market
Late Night Pharmacy: HealthSmart Pharmacy
Massage: Stable Massage
Psychologist: Three Rooms
Personal Trainer: Iron Monk Fitness
Wine: Cardwell Cellars. LePub
Best direction for sun: North
Trips out
Take any or all of these short trips out of Melbourne.
Cape Schanck House: A lodging disguised as a spaceship, designed by Paul Morgan Architects—landed gently on Victoria’s windswept coast, but mentally parked somewhere near 2566.
Ferry from Point Lonsdale to Portsea: Drive your car onto the boat, spot a dolphin if you’re lucky, and arrive feeling oddly cinematic.
Then ignore the beach and head inland to TarraWarra Museum—because art waits for no tide, though you should return for sunset.
Sherbrooke Forest: Sounds like something from Tolkien, and walks like it too—towering ferns, mist, and the perfect place to reset your nervous system without the app.
For young ones and the young at heart
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Protective Facial Lotion SPF50
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Immaculate Facial Tonic
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Herbal Déodorant
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Tacit Eau de Parfum
Regular price MYR630.00Regular priceUnit price per
Stores of stories
Spin a bottle of Ramune and see which one you land on. Aesop’s stores, and consultants are a reliable way to get to know a city, and its history.
Recommended reading
‘So much of life remains unsung.’
Lesbia Harford