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Melbourne CBD skyline from Southbank
Photograph: Roberto Seba

Melbourne CBD area guide

The best restaurants, bars, shops and events in Melbourne

Adena Maier
Edited by
Adena Maier
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From the shopping precincts of Bourke Street Mall, Melbourne Central and the glitzy Paris End of Collins Street, to the markets and galleries of Federation Square, the CBD is a hotbed of activity.

Jump on the free City Circle tram if you’re a newb, which will trundle you past sights like the SeaLife Melbourne AquariumOld Melbourne Gaol and Parliament House – and of course, you’ll want to jump out and explore the coffee, boutiques and street art of the laneways and old arcades.

When you're spent and hungry try to find Izakaya DenCookieCumulus IncMoVida or one of the many iconic Melbourne hangouts. Need a drink? The CBD's best bars and pubs are listed below.

So do the time-honoured thing: meet someone under the Flinders Street Station clocks and explore.

After more area guides? Check out our suburb-by-suburb guides here.

Melbourne highlights

Where to eat lunch in the CBD

Where to eat lunch in the CBD

It's lunch o'clock in Melbourne CBD and you need some food, stat. Make your midday meal a deadset winner every day of the working week and pull up a seat at...

Four bar crawls in Melbourne's CBD

Four bar crawls in Melbourne's CBD

Call us biased if you will, but we reckon Melbourne's CBD has some of the best close-quarters drinking action to be found in any city centre you care to name.

Where to get brunch in the CBD

Where to get brunch in the CBD

Whether you're up for a food forage at the market, fancy an artery-hardening fry-up or desire something more civilised to break your fast (caviar and soft...

The best restaurants in the CBD

Tipo 00

Tipo 00

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

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...

Izakaya Den

Izakaya Den

  • 4 out of 5 stars

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...

ShanDong MaMa

ShanDong MaMa

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 1 of 4

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...

Cumulus Inc

Cumulus Inc

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

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...

Supernormal

Supernormal

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

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...

Flower Drum

Flower Drum

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • price 3 of 4

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...

Maha

Maha

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

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...

San Telmo

San Telmo

  • 4 out of 5 stars

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...

The best bars in the CBD

Section 8

Section 8

  • 3 out of 5 stars

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...

Boilermaker House

Boilermaker House

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

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...

Heartbreaker

Heartbreaker

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 1 of 4

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:...

Kirk's Wine Bar

Kirk's Wine Bar

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4

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...

The best hotels in the CBD

Mövenpick Hotel Melbourne

Mövenpick Hotel Melbourne

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...

Grand Hyatt Melbourne

Grand Hyatt Melbourne

  • price 4 of 4

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...

Sofitel Melbourne

Sofitel Melbourne

  • price 3 of 4

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...

More great venues in the CBD

Queen Victoria Market

Queen Victoria Market

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...

Emporium Melbourne

Emporium Melbourne

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...

State Library of Victoria

State Library of Victoria

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,...

Federation Square

Federation Square

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...

Curtin House

Curtin House

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...