THE BEST 10 Sichuan Restaurants in Melbourne Victoria 2023

Spice Temple offers modern Chinese dining in a spectacular riverside setting for your next private function. Awaken the palette with a tart pickled dish, followed by a raw yellowfin tuna or beef tartare, Xinjiang style. The best restaurants in Melbourne, as reviewed for our annual Restaurant Guide. There are old favourites, new trailblazers, and a lot of dining out to be done. The Best Restaurants in Melbourne’s CBD Hand-pulled noodle houses in Chinatown.
When the restaurant originally opened its doors in 1983, its genuine Middle Eastern food won over the town. The restaurant's signature dish, kofta meatballs, and a well-known vegetarian menu are also offered. Even if your budget is tighter sichuan restaurant than you'd like (make that "a lot") or you've been saving up that special bottle of wine for a special occasion , nothing matches a top-shelf BYO dining experience. Can you think of a name less appropriate for a Sichuan restaurant?

Plus, there are lo-fi Australian wines and disposable cameras to capture your night. Cookie combines rowdy European beer hall with standout Thai food that beckons to be shared. It’s fun, versatile and subtly influential, preceding similar restaurants like Chin Chin.
Knows exactly what it is and its lo-fi simple interior provides the perfect blank canvas for the array of expertly crafted Cantonese cooking, seamlessly streaming from the kitchen at the back of the restaurant. You could spend an entire evening exploring this split-level Japanese restaurant and sake temple. Don't expect a cheap feed though—this is as fancy as Melbourne gets. Let’s round this out with one more Asian restaurant because Melbourne's CBD does Asian food better than almost anywhere.

In his quest to "rethink the Anatolian kitchen", chef-owner Coskun Uysal has forged a startlingly original vision of Turkish cuisine. Take the içli köfte – or lamb kibbeh – reimagined as a slender pie slice, given crunch and complexity from walnuts, currants, cumin and buttermilk garlic sauce. Or dolma-style sardines dressed with tart sumac tea, wrapped around cinnamon-fragrant lemon rice. It may only have opened in 2020, but – much like its namesake cocktail – Gimlet is already a classic, a cinematic recreation of the Roaring Twenties that would leave even Cecil B DeMille feeling inspired. Under the astute direction of Andrew McConnell, the art deco dazzle is matched by a menu delivering conspicuous consumption with all the flair you could desire, from caviar to wood-grilled lobster.
To get the very best from this fine-dining institution, be sure to dine off one of the set menus. That way you get a taste of all the signature dishes without the added stress of having to decide between them. Centrally located , Cookie is one of the city’s most popular restaurants. Fusing together a Thai restaurant, a beer hall and a cocktail bar, Cookie is a one-stop-shop, guaranteed to delight everyone in your party. Always buzzy, you’ll find diners digging into the likes of drunken noodles, crispy pork belly curry and moreish beef ribs with lemongrass and star anise.

Yet, there's a knack for lifting the nominally prosaic to the level of poetry, too. The tiered dining room is a fitting stage for Melbourne's glitterati, but standout floor staff ensure everyone at Gimlet feels like a star. A sneaky mimosa with brunch might be a weekend ritual for some Melburnians, but it’s easy to forget that yum cha is “brunch” for many people in East Asia. With corkage being the same price as today’s flat white ($7), swap out the BLTs for barbecue pork buns and the mimosas for a bottle of good fizz.
This sentiment carries through to the desserts, where custard is infused with jasmine tea and the trifle features rose tea and osmanthus cream. As it should be—with the ultra-high standard of Chinese dishes being served up daily. A dim sum selection to die for, quail san choi bow, crispy pork ribs with a crunchy garlic crumble, whole fish, flavour-packed hot and sour soup—you can see why we get excited about this one. A lot of Melbournians wait for a special occasion to check out Flower Drum, but it's really good any time you're hungry. Still the city's most buzzing pan-Asian eatery, and one of Melbourne CBD's best restaurants.
A light-filled contemporary eatery serving up award-winning fare, Cumulus Inc. is well-loved within the Melbourne foodie scene. Acclaimed chef Andrew McConnell is a jack-of-all-trades, plating up deceptively simple breakfasts and sophisticated yet wholesome lunch and dinners. Make sure you wander upstairs to sister bar Cumulus Up.

Order a banquet menu of snapper sashimi, poached prawn salad and barramundi with star anise broth. A neon-lit Thai joint serving fun, modern twists on the country’s cuisine. Whether you’re here for bottomless brunch or a late-night snack, there are plenty of versatile spaces to drink and dine in.
Though a sushi train might not the first place that come to mind when you think of BYO, the many textures and flavours offered by raw seafood lend themselves to white wines with plenty of minerality. Everything here is reasonably priced, and large lines form well before the doors open. Like a Japanese bullet train, things move quickly at Sushi Hotaru. With red velvet booths, white linen, exceptional service, and a menu filled with French classics such as escargots a la forestiere and boeuf Bourguignon– it’s a no-brainer. What kind of noodle soup list would this be without a rich-as-Jeff Bezos style tonkotsu ramen?