Above photo: credit to Transformer Fitrzoy
Out of all of the restaurants and cafes I’ve dined at or blogged out, I have to admit that Transformer Fitzroy is the best I’ve ever been to. Is it the gorgeously fauna-focused aesthetic? Yep. Is it the fact that it’s all vegetarian and incorporates fine dining elements without the pomp? Definitely. Is it that the food tasted better than anything else I’ve ever eaten (dessert being the highlight)? YES.
Location: 179 Swan Street, Richmond, VIC.
Highlights: Zucchini flowers stuffed with garlic prawns + pistachio baklava with halva ice cream.
Last weekend marked the season of Greek Easter and for the past 3.5 years, I’ve been lucky enough to celebrate two feast-filled Easter weekends with my half-greek partner. This year, Sim and I stayed in Melbourne and unfortunately we weren’t able to catch up with Sim’s Greek half of the family for the Easter celebrations. Instead, we took ourselves out to a Greek restaurant we hadn’t been to before in Richmond: Bahari The Hellenic Palete.
Location: Corner of Nicholson St and Mollison St, Abbotsford, Melbourne.
Highlights: Gorgeous aesthetic, fantastic menu, quiet surroundings.
If I could choose any meal to have a bit of a splurge by going to a nice restaurant, I will always choose brunch. A nice dinner? Yeah, okay. A long lunch? Mm, sure. Brunch? YES PLEASE!
It was a quiet Thursday night in Coburg and Sim and I were tucked up on the couch watching SBS’s Food Network. Standard. The TV show was talking about the best wood-fire ovens in Australia and my ears pricked up when the host spoke about a pizza restaurant in Brunswick, Melbourne. After watching the show and drooling over the warm, toasty goodness which was being shoveled in and out of the handmade wood-fire oven, Sim and I jotted down the name of the restaurant and immediately made a booking for the following Saturday night.
Market Lane Coffee is, so far, my favourite coffee shop in Melbourne. Now that’s a pretty big statement because Melbourne as a city takes the production, look, smell, taste and everything about coffee pretty seriously. There are so many beautiful cafes and coffee shops everywhere you go in Melbourne and I bloody love it!
House-hunting rule number one: ensure you’re within walking distance to a fab coffee shop!
In Melbourne, you can barely walk a block without spotting (and smelling the delicious aromas of) at least five artisanal cafes. So since we moved from Brunswick to Coburg, Sim and I have been spending our quieter weekends sussing out the local coffee joints near our apartment.
If you’re looking for a place with authentic market vibes (and by that I mean stall-spruking, vegetable-exchanging, coffee-grinding, fresh bread-baking kind of vibes) look no further than the South Melbourne Market.
