The best date-night restaurants in Melbourne

Our favourite places for frocking up and impressing someone's pants off

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By Time Out editors Posted: Tuesday January 26 2016

"You choose the place!" is a phrase that hardly anyone wants to hear when it comes to arranging the perfect date (the pressure!) – unless you're armed with a fail-proof list of romantic spots. You can't go wrong at any of these restaurants (unless you can't afford the more expensive ones: check the menu first!). Good luck, daters.

Melbourne is a city never short of romantic locales; check out our list of the best places for Tinder dates, or if the mood takes you, the most romantic hotels.

Super-extra-fancy

Hidden gold

Wine and snacks

Rosetta

Neil Perry's marble shrine to pasta is ludicrously opulent, and that's what Valentine's Day is all about. NB: Expect to drop a bomb on your crab pasta.

Southbank

Vue De Monde

There are still a few tables left in the restaurant at the top of the Rialto, but if you can't drop that much cash on dinner, you should at least hit up Lui Bar next door for a sky high cocktail at sundown.

Melbourne

Attica

On one night, we've seen a 20-something couple and (we swear to god) an 80-something couple both getting misty-eyed over Ben Shewry's potato. That says it all.

Ripponlea

The Point

It's a restaurant overlooking a motherlovin' lake friends. And we all know that wagyu, wine, and actual love is nothing if not enjoyed beside a large body of water.

Albert Park

Estelle Bistro

Mod-Oz in an Art Deco diner. This is the hottest piece of eating action north of Fitzroy if you like all things molecular.

Northcote

Lupino

Classic food, modern venue. The place to go if you want to do the Italian restaurant thing without feeling like a cheesy twat.

Melbourne

Epocha

So pretty it hurts. This restaurant has the sort of effortless vintage-charm that makes singles proclaim through gritted teeth, "I'M SO HAPPY I'M FREE" and then cry into their soup.

Carlton