Melbourne CBD area guide

Let’s start with the pasta. This is a pasta bar, after all, although that seems to sell Tipo 00 short. Pappardelle, thick ribbons boasting the suppleness of...

It’s hard to find and has minimal signage. So far, so Melbourne. But find the doorway, descend the stairs, push aside a black curtain and this dark basement...

If this isn’t the best little hole-in-the-wall dumpling den in Melbourne, we’ll eat the menu. Just watch us. The space is no more than a plain canteen with...

Andrew McConnell once did work experience in a hair salon. He asked us not to tell anyone, but we just can’t imagine what Melbourne dining would be like if the...

You get a strange same-same-but-different feeling when you walk into Supernormal, Andrew McConnell’s new Japanese-y diner in Flinders Lane. To an extent, it’s...

A decade is a long time in restaurant years – especially in Melbourne, land of the fickle diner. So what is it about this high-end Cantonese restaurant that’s...

There’s turquoise and shiny metallics, but the revamp of this subterranean haunt isn’t about to bash you over the head with any overt Middle Eastern-ims. The...

Giddy up, meat fans. San Telmo has ridden into town like an Argentinean gaucho (that’s a cowboy, kids), brandishing hefty slabs of flame-grilled cow and some...

After squeezing past the huge bouncers to get into the much-hyped Section 8, you might be disappointed to find yourself standing in what amounts to a vacant...

If you’d worked a long, hard day in a 19th-century Pittsburgh steel mill, you probably wouldn’t want to quench your thirst with a Sex on the Beach. What you’d...

Anyone who has spent any serious time drinking in the United States will return to Melbourne lamenting our lack of down-and-dirty dive bars. You know the type:...

What do you do when you find a cellar under your floorboards? Turn the building into a wine shop. It’s not like Con Christopoulos, Ian Curley and Josh Brisbane...

A five-star hotel with an enviable Collins Street address.

Australia’s second-ever Mövenpick Hotel has landed in the Melbourne CBD, and it comes with heaps of perks that will ensure your stay is chock full...

Located at the ‘Paris’ end of Collins Street, thanks to many high-end French fashion labels that call this part of town home, Grand Hyatt Melbourne...

Since the early noughties, Sofitel Melbourne has stood tall at the top of Collins Street for its five-star service, views across the ‘G, the City and Port...

Major exhibitions relating to movie culture happen here as well as screenings in two cinemas.

The open-air Queen Vic is loud and proud, packed with veteran stallholders who are passionate about fresh produce. Whatever you seek you will find, from fruit...

By now you’ve probably heard about the big guns: there’s Japanese casualwear giant UNIQLO, the multi-level Topshop Melbourne flagship and the oh-so-fancy café...

Step into the Dome Reading Room at the State Library of Victoria, and you can almost hear the cogs turning in the minds of visitors. People are studying,...

When Melburnians want to take a break from complaining about the weather, they start whinging about Melbourne's 'Meeting Place', Federation Square. Love it or...

This six-storey building houses some of Melbourne's most interesting tenants. From clothing stores, restaurants (Mesa Verde and Cookie), bars (The Toff in Town...