Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Melbourne's ethnic restaurants, once clustered in tight community hubs, now flourish all
over the city, though there are still loosely dedicated zones. Richmond's Victoria St is
packed with Vietnamese restaurants and provedores while the western suburb of
Footscray draws those looking for the most authentic Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodi-
an food, as well as great East African and Indian restaurants. Lygon St, Carlton, has long
been home to simple red-sauce Italian cooking - with notable innovators such as D.O.C -
and its coffee and Italian delis are excellent. Chinatown, in the city centre, is home to
Flower Drum, one of Australia's most renowned restaurants of any culinary persuasion,
and there are places doing regional cuisines such as Sichuan- and Beijing-style dumplings
up every other laneway. You'll find Japanese
izakayas
(pubs) and Korean restaurants here,
too. Just to the north, Lonsdale St has a handful of Greek taverns and bars. The northern
suburb of Brunswick has a number of wonderful Middle Eastern bakers and grocers as
well as cafes and restaurants. A large international student population has seen many Indi-
an, Malaysian and Indonesian places spring up in the city and around the various uni-
versity campuses, serving inexpensive and fabulously authentic dishes.
VEG OUT
Vegetarians and vegans (and even raw-food enthusiasts) will have no trouble finding restaurants that cater spe-
cifically to them in Melbourne, particularly in neighbourhoods such as Fitzroy and St Kilda.
There will also be at least a couple of dishes on most restaurant menus that will please, and few restaurateurs
will look askance at special requests. Many fine-dining restaurants (Vue de Monde, Attica, Moon Under Water,
etc) offer vegetarian degustation tasting menus, and with advance warning these can usually be made dairy-free.
Most Asian and Indian restaurants will have large meatless menus, but with Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai
cooking you'll need to be clear that you don't want the common additives of oyster or fish sauce. Casual Japanese
places also have many vegetarian options, though similarly you'll need to ask if they can prepare your dish with
dashi
(stock) that hasn't been made with bonito fish (ask if they have mushroom or seaweed
dashi
instead).
