The best steak in Melbourne

If you ask your mum what she reckons the best steak in the city is, chances are she’ll say Rockpool. And she’s not wrong. Despite the long tenure of this tourist-packed Melbourne institution, when it comes to very expensive pieces of grilled meat, they’ve still got it. Put down $115 for a 240gm portion of David Blackmore Mishima rump cap, aged for 35 days. The meat has that mineral bloody tang our inner caveman craves, while the fat is so well aged and rendered that it presents like the delicate, translucent fat of prosciutto. Impeccably scorched, seasoned and rested, we're happy to pronounce this Melbourne's best few bites of beef, and by a serious margin.  

The steak at the Lincoln was a big part of the decision to make them our 2017 Time Out Pub of the Year. There’s only one on the menu, and the cut of beef and how it’s served change regularly, but it’s always a cracker. Chef Howard Stamp knows his way around a bit of beef like few others in the city, sourcing only meat that’s been aged for a minimum of 28 days, and always grilling it with a deft and practiced hand. The thrice-cooked chips will probably take years off your life, but it’ll be worth it, and the excellent selection of and wine and craft beer help to make this the best choice for a casual steak in the city.  

If you long for the pub meals of the past, the Railway Club Hotel is a brilliant panacea to the pains of the modern world. But despite the old school styling of this dining room and the casual service, the steaks are as good as any in the city. All dry aged and cooked to perfection, there’s nary a bad one on the list. Little copper pots full of your choice of sauce and proper mustard service to boot make this one of the only places left in town where the fun of a proper old-fashioned steakhouse meets the quality of modern techniques.

You won't be ‘explained’ the menu at Gimlet. Appetisers, entrées and mains assert the old-fashioned virtues. But it’s mostly engineered with easy sharing in mind, facilitated by intuitive waiters armed with the full quiver of serving cutlery. Trottole pasta – like curly pigs’ tails – with deshelled tiger prawns in a luscious bisque sauce pepped up with the subtle Sicilian-isms of fried eggplant, pine nuts and currants would be one helluva rich ride as a solo dish. And there’s no point even debating the share status of the T-bone – all 900 grams of dry-aged, grass-fed beefiness, wood-cooked into pink-centred, charry-crusted perfection – with its condiment sidekicks of béarnaise, French mustard and horseradish cream. 

If you and your boo both reckon sinking your canines into a giant hunk of meat is the perfect date, look no further than Epocha. Their Gippsland porterhouse is ideal for sharing, presented on gorgeous vintage China printed with delicate pink roses. Tender and flavoursome, the flesh is a perfect colour spectrum of dark brown char to bright, just bloody pink, perfectly rested so that barely any juices escape. Served with Bordelaise sauce and outstanding Mediterranean wines curated by proprietor Angie Giannakodakis, who also happens to be the best floor manager in Melbourne, this is one of the most entirely enjoyable and romantic steak experiences around.

Pub fans of the west can rely on Station Hotel for consistency: a friendly, relaxed atmosphere, great craft beer and wine lists, and the kitchen's famous steaks. Locals and steak aficionados can select from a menu that offers premium grain- and grass-fed steaks from Australian beef, including 300g Great Southern Pinnacle porterhouses to 200g Sher Wagyu. What are you waiting for?

It’s funny how sometimes the simplest of concepts have the greatest impact. Like Entrecôte, which was hailed in its Domain Road heyday for the audacious vision of serving steak frites and little else. While there's plenty more on the menu to celebrate these days, the steak frites still reigns supreme. It's grain-fed black market Angus beef from Rangers Valley, served with some of the best French fries in the city and Entrecote's secret herb butter sauce. So simple, yet so satisfying.

This steak house and gastropub in Prahran has some truly impressive meat on the menu. Cooked over a wood-fired grill by former Rockpool sous chef Declan Carroll, these steaks are ideally charred, a whiff of wood smoke permeating the tender meat. The O’Connors Gippsland 28-month-old, grass-fed rib eye is presented sliced from the bone, which is still on the plate and begging to be picked up and gnawed. This thing has also been dry aged for a minimum of 30 days, giving the fat that incredible bacon-like quality. 

Whether a sirloin New York cut, wagyu bavette or Florentine-style Bistecca, your piece of protein on a plate does not come cheap at Grill Americano – but look on the bright side of precision cooking on the charcoal grill and a sauce smorgasbord including black truffle butter and green peppercorn with Cognac. No, you cannot do steak like this at home.

You only need to step inside Meatmaiden to see these guys are serious about meat. Glass cabinets are packed with thick, marbled rib eyes, chains of sausages and racks of short ribs, all lit up by spotlights in full gory glory. It looks like Fangtasia - the nightclub from True Blood. They’re throwing some high quality beef into the Myron Mixon smoker (imported from the States and running on the sweet smoke from red gum and cherry woods). This is meat for those who like it fat-rich, salt-heavy and so soft it’s gummable. The 20-hour brisket, rubbed in native pepperberry, is so marbled it’s like eating meat butter – same goes for the short ribs, served pre-sliced and draped across the bone. 

France-Soir is truly a Melbourne institution, thanks to its dependable mastery of the French bistro classics. It's Steak tartare is ubiquitous in the Melbourne dining scene, however, this rendition is one of the best we've encountered. Served pre-mixed, it's gooey and rich. There's a 750g rib eye steak with béarnaise sauce, also a hit. The meat is flavoursome and juicy, simply seasoned with salt and pepper that lets the rich beef flavour shine. It's recommended that you attack the bone with your hands – this is also encouraged by waitstaff.

Victor Churchill has established itself as Melbourne's most bougie butcher. With floors made of deep green Verde marble and fine copper arches, the space pays homage to the owner's Croatian heritage and bears almost no resemblance to your local butcher shop. Offering only the highest-quality cuts of meat, Victor Churchill has sourced its products from suppliers including Stone Axe Fullblood Wagyu and premium grass-fed Black Angus beef by O’Connor in Gippsland.

Aside from being one of the most visually arresting spaces in Melbourne, Reine and La Rue can also lay claim to boasting one of the most elevated fine dining experiences our city's ever seen. A long and expensive project from the Nomad crew, the wait has been worth it and we're all about the steaks from the woodfire grill. From an 180-gram Rangers Valley onglet at $65, to the whopping 1-kilogram of Blackmore Wagyu ribeye at $420, this is Aussie beef at its finest.

While steak prepared the European way has largely dominated this list, it would be a sin not to include Mansae's juicy Korean barbecue beef. The restaurant's grills use charcoal, enhancing the smoky flavours that encapsulate each piece of meat, and it makes all the difference. The wagyu scotch fillet comes as a thick-cut steak, with its marble score of 9+ accounting for the webs of fat that contribute to the juicy, melty texture. It’s tender, soft and buttery. The wagyu short ribs are similarly marbled but they're more thinly sliced – the one-biteful paper-thin slice you'd usually expect from Korean barbecue. Mansae doesn’t come cheap, with premium cuts at premium prices. Well worth it, in our books, if you love steak. 

In yet another winning pub revamp for 2023, the folks at Central Club Hotel have unveiled one of the most sustainable renovations to grace Melbourne's hospo scene. The venue has achieved an Aussie first for a commercial space, meeting all the requirements of the Passivhaus Standard by designing every element to be as energy-efficient as possible. But while you might marvel at the seamless integration of the 150-year-old building’s original jarrah wood in the new furniture and joinery housed within the barely touched Art Deco exterior, it’s the revived food and drinks offering that has our hearts aflutter.  The mains cover elevated takes on crowd-pleasing pub classics (think Wagyu cheeseburgers with hand-cut chips and beer-battered fish with mushy peas) and the organic steaks from neighbouring butcher Hagen’s are cooked just how you like with your choice of sauce. Perfect.

We've established that the wine, service and pasta at the Recreation are awesome, but the steak also happens to be one of the best in town for a casual weekday treat. Their 7+ Score Sher Wagyu is served a well-rested medium rare, the fats allowed to render and caramelise, and the rich meat gently grilled so as not to overpower with char. Served with a sauce Diane, some of the best wines in town, and the kind of service that makes you feel like everything will be OK, this is the steak you need when the world is just a bit too much.

A Melbourne take on a New York version of a Parisian bistro, Bar Margaux is yet another spot offering up excellent steak frites. And we're grateful because it's open late (midnight burger cravings are totally a thing), also serving up immaculate cocktails and classic French desserts that hit the spot. The steak's a 250-gram rump, served with red wine jus and fries, while there's also a duck frites you can order: slow-cooked duck breast with raddichio, parmesan and a gingery bread sauce. It, too, is a showstopper.

While many have tried to imitate the classic French bistro menu of late, none have done so as well as French Saloon. Pop upstairs from Kirk’s Wine Bar on Hardware Lane to find a big warehouse dining room flooded with evening light. Start with a glass of bubbles and some oysters, then tuck into their small but intensely beefy steak frites, topped with rich Roquefort butter and fried breadcrumbs. Shoestring fries and a piquant salad round out the plate for a superb and satisfying meal that won’t leave you in a meat coma.

San Telmo is huge, the char-grillers are hot, and the meat is good. The beauty of this place is not so much the outright quality of the food, but its flexibility and fun. This is the spot where your in-laws from out of town, your awkward work lunch, or your fussy kids will all be happy and full of meat when they leave. Tasty and inexpensive South American wines and exotic yet approachable snacks will leave everyone feeling like they’ve had an exciting Melbourne laneway meal without pushing their boundaries, or their wallets, too far.

Butcher’s earns its spot on the list because it’s the only steak worth the trouble you can get at 3am. Mostly known for burgers, the CBD’s latest all-night drunk food spot also has a huge case for ageing meat, and a rotating steak on the 24-hour menu. On our visit it’s a rump sprayed with Maker's Mark bourbon for 40 days straight. It’s not the most incredible steak in town, but it’s well aged, well cooked, cheap and tastes properly meaty. With plenty of beer, wine in 375ml bottles, and 1950s rock on the soundtrack, this strange approximation of an American diner is worth a gander next time you need to fuel up on the stumble home.