Amphora

While Marvel’s movie slate shrinks, Marvel Stadium is upping its dining game with a new restaurant and an upstairs bar with American menus from culinary directors Shannon Martinez and Aaron Rodrigues.

Both the restaurant, Friends of Fire, and the bar, Amphora, are on Marvel Promenade, meaning once they open in March the two venues, which have a combined capacity of 1350 people, will operate even on days when there are no concerts or games on at the 53,000-capacity stadium. The spaces were both designed by Hachem (W Melbourne, Curious) and will be contemporary in style.

Though not vegan or vegetarian herself, Martinez is a trailblazer of Melbourne’s vegan restaurant scene and is known for her vegan restaurants Smith & Daughters and Lona Misa. She’ll oversee the Friends of Fire and Amphora vegan offerings while Rodrigues, who is also executive chef at The George on Collins, will focus on the meat and fish.

Amphora will have a variety of towers – “that seafood tower vibe”, as Martinez says – with a seafood, vegan and meat tower available. On non-event days the bar will only open for functions, but when the stadium is buzzing on game days, there’ll be Coney Island chilli dogs and soft pretzels with mustard butter.

The restaurant and bar represent something of a homecoming for Martinez, who made a name for herself in the mid-2000s when she was making American-style barbeque at The Gasometer (doing split vegan and non-vegan menus) before moving onto South Yarra’s Sweetwater Inn, and eventually opening Smith & Daughters.

Friends of Fire and Amphora are due to open in March 2024 at 740 Bourke Street Docklands.