Time Out Food & Drink Awards 2023: Best Fine Dining Restaurant Nominees

This is very much going to sound like a first-world problem, but sometimes you’re simply not in the mood for the laborious mental demands of high-brow degustation dining. Unlike hoeing into a bowl of spag bol at your mum’s house or sharing a pizza with friends, taking the time to critically ponder the creative life’s work of a chef can feel tense and serious. This is why after a 45-minute drive from Melbourne to Beaconsfield, I’m grateful to discover the famous O.My to be a surprisingly relaxing affair. It’s hushed with natural light, as comfortable as a reading room in a library, and boasts no ostentatious distractions or highfalutin tricks up its sleeve. Serenity, at last.

Anyone with even the slightest interest in Melbourne’s food and hospitality scene has been talking about Reine and La Rue of late. The highly ambitious project from Nomad Group has  transformed Melbourne’s hallowed old Stock Exchange building into a European-inspired restaurant as ritzy as it is regal, with a speakeasy bar (the Rue part) accessible through an adjoining courtyard. It’s the first time the space has been open to the public in more than 20 years and the obsession is real. But big talk doesn’t always lead to a big walk, and so I was determined to discover if the new dining venture is as good as others say. Spoiler alert: it’s even better.

From the moment you book the full seasonal tasting experience on Amaru’s website, you know you’re in for an odyssey. It’s the restaurant’s most extravagant offering, after all – with five snacks, seven courses and petit fours, plus optional drink pairings. Skipping brekky isn’t a bad idea, but that’s not to say the food at Amaru will be dense or cumbersome – the progression of light to heavier dishes is carefully designed, a thoughtful pacing that allows you to take as long as you please in comfort.

There’s something in the air at Gimlet. A sense of anticipation and unadulterated enjoyment; a palpable celebration that the 2020s can deliver something so wonderfully and glitzily 1920s (pre-crash, of course). Walk into the glamorously retooled Art Deco beauty Cavendish House on the corner of Russell and Flinders Lane and you’re whisked to another era, when people dressed for dinner and seafood arrived on silver platters. There are twinkling chandeliers and horseshoe-shaped booths, rippled glass and winking brass – and bless the amphitheatre-like tiered seating for making it easy to spy on the media-influencer-politico-celebutant faces flocking here like moths to a flame.

While our city is filled with a labyrinth of outstanding and historic establishments, few really deserve the coveted title of being a Melbourne culinary institution – an overused and often meaningless phrase. However, after experiencing a meal in the tranquil yet dynamic dining room at Kenzan, the Collins Street restaurant that has been serving traditional Japanese fare since 1981, you leave with the feeling that there aren’t many ways more apt to describe the place.