Six To Try: Exciting New Restaurants, Bars and Coffee Shops in the CBD

The Melbourne CBD is gearing up for an exciting few months, with Edition Hospitality’s Prive, Shannon Martinez’s Smith & Deli and Andrew McConnell’s hotly anticipated Cote Basque opening later this winter. And while favourites including Antara and Kariton’s Chinatown scoop shop have recently closed, 2026 has already seen a slew of new CBD openings. Here are six exciting new places to eat and drink in the city right now.

Roma

Roma is a glamorous yet understated dining room off Collins Street, decked in green marble, intricate chequered stone floors, vintage Italian lamps and chandeliers. It’s from legend Con Christopoulos (Supper Club, The European, City Wine Shop, Siglo, Kafeneion and many more), who’s joined by chef Matt Wilkinson of Pope Joan fame, front-of-house gun Giovanni Patane (who ran Supermaxi for 12 years) and drinks guru Warwick Harty, who’s worked at Christopoulos’s venues on and off for 30 years.

Together they’ve built the purest interpretation of a Roman trattoria we’ve yet seen in Melbourne – a city where the Italian restaurants tend not to worry about regional boundaries.

The menu features a classic trippa alla romana (tripe simmered in tomato and wine) alongside rose veal chops, pork scotch neck and lamb shoulder chops from the grill. Beef fillets are sold in 100-gram portions that encourage customising your plate. If you’re keen for a good fish – baked whole rock flathead, for example – head over to the ice-filled drawers by the kitchen and take your pick.

Roma’s white lattice ceiling is a homage to Christopoulos’s favourite restaurant, Rome’s Trattoria al Moro, founded in 1929. Other references abound, if you know where to look. The distinctive grille on the terrace facade was lifted from a Roman house briefly featured in Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America, a documentary about the famous spaghetti Western director for whom Roma’s upcoming sibling bar Sergio’s is named. The cutlery is the same type used at the Fendi Hotel, where Christopoulos stays in Rome. Then there’s the Italian-made crockery he calls “out of control beautiful”, sourced from 291-year-old company Ginori.

Rear, 120 Collins Street, Melbourne (alternate access also via 100 Russell Street)

Sagye

There are just five dishes on the menu at new CBD restaurant Sagye: bulgogi, suyuk (boiled pork belly), house-made pork mandu (dumplings) and two kinds of gomtang. The latter, a traditional Korean beef soup that simmers for hours before it arrives at the table, is the reason for visiting the 23-seat Russell Street spot.

At Sagye, the broth is made using three cuts of Wagyu: brisket, shank and chuck eye roll. The beef is simmered for four hours, resulting in a clear yet deeply flavoured broth. A special gomtang adds beef tendon, leading to a richer broth and an added textural element. The restaurant goes through almost 100 kilograms of beef a day, with one chef dedicated solely to making the stock.

This sentiment extends to the dining room. The minimalist space is clad in dark timber. It was designed by founder Levi Eun, who travelled back and forth between Korea and Australia to source tableware, lighting and ceramics. Behind the counter, chefs hover over steaming stockpots, reinforcing the idea that every detail revolves around a single dish.

House-made drinks round out the offering with sujeonggwa (cinnamon punch) and slow-brewed sikhye (rice punch).

250 Russell Street, Melbourne

Bar Kaeru

Bar Kaeru is a new La Trobe Street bar built around a simple idea: given the right entry point, people will fall in love with saké.

While saké has been steadily gaining traction locally through festivals, growing import lists and a broader curiosity around Japanese drinking and dining culture, the team behind Bar Kaeru saw a gap – not in availability, but in approach.

“People are starting to learn about saké, but what’s missing is a space where we can explain it – where people can actually understand it, not just drink it,” says owner Sean Then, who brings the same innovative approach to coffee-based drinks at Cafe Tomi in North Melbourne.

The room is anchored by a horseshoe bar, designed to coax guests into conversation, where staff guide them through a list that spans classic producers, modern brewers and seasonal releases. The approach is flexible: instead of fixed pairings, the team encourages exploration, offering multiple saké options for each dish and inviting you to compare. Keep an eye out for names like Abe Sake – a sixth-generation Niigata brewery known for its bright, acid-driven style – and Saga Prefecture’s experimental Koueigiku, whose labels change with each seasonal brew.

62 Little La Trobe Street, Melbourne

Bar Ferdinand

Above 7 Alfred, the steak frites restaurant by Hunter St Hospitality (Rockpool, Spice Temple) in the city’s east end, is Bar Ferdinand – the group’s new botanical-themed cocktail bar. Under bar manager Greg Thompson (Apollo Inn, Gimlet, Dinner by Heston) and group beverage director Ali Toghani, Bar Ferdinand is serving forward-thinking drinks inspired by flora found in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

Cocktails are conceived and named around eight core themes. Unusually for a bar, the drinks’ names stay the same, while the cocktails themselves keep evolving. For now, the Eucalypt features calvados, nashi pear wine and eucalypt soda; the Herb is made with fig leaf gin, macadamia orgeat, sage and lemon; and the Fern has cognac, kaolin clay vodka, puer tea and a petrichor mist.

Rounding out the menu is a house Martini and house Japanese Slipper, both reinterpreted with botanicals. The Slipper, made with yuzu and house melon, is a nod to former tenant Mietta’s Restaurant and Bar, where the drink was created in the 1980s.

Level 1, 7 Alfred Place, Melbourne

Patricia

The debate lasted for years and years. Pip Heath and Bowen Holden couldn’t decide whether to stay small or expand their Hot Listed coffee institution Patricia, which has drawn a loyal crowd to Little William Street since late 2011. This while contemporaries like Market Lane have grown to as many as 10 locations.

But in May, finally, the duo opened a second Patricia in the former Black Eagle Hotel on Lonsdale Street, a heritage building that dates back to 1850.

Patricia Lonsdale keeps a familiar bar-style layout, but adds an adjoining room designed to feel a little like standing around a kitchen bench. It’s recognisably Patricia, though less compressed, with the kind of warmth that suits a longer pause rather than a quick in-and-out coffee run between meetings.

The espresso machine is the same – a La Marzocco Strada – as is the policy of serving nothing but single-origin coffees, usually washed. The larger space has also brought back single-serve pour-over coffee, which disappeared from the original site in its early days. Little William Street still focuses on batch-brewed filter, but Lonsdale Street showcases other coffees one cup at a time.

Shop 15/50 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

Interlude

At the end of 2024, Sean Then opened Cafe Tomi, a North Melbourne coffee shop known for specialty coffee drinks. Earlier this year, he followed it up with Bar Kaeru. Now, he’s turned his attention to Chinese and Japanese tea with new tea house Interlude (in the same building as Bar Kaeru).

On any given day, there are about five different special tea drinks, three cold brew teas and more than 20 unique hot teas on offer including oolong, green, black and red teas from China and Japan. Then develops all Interlude’s changing roster of tea drinks, drawing on experience he gained developing cocktails while working at saké bar Leonie Upstairs.

Joining Then are head baker Taylor Kim of Plot and head pastry chef Kyoko Miyazaki, a former sous pastry chef at Sepia and Society who is also behind Japanese parfait pop-up Yoruyoru.

Kim specialises in danishes, which are used as a base for the team to get creative with. Savoury numbers include chorizo and cheddar, and a corn cheese danish inspired by Kim’s Korean heritage. Plus, there are seasonal, fruitier numbers such as a raspberry danish and a fig option.

Miyazaki creates other desserts including matcha pudding, miso caramel and apple financiers, and an oolong-infused Taiwanese castella cake – an incredibly soft and fluffy sponge cake – with an oolong cream and crystalised tea leaves on top. Soon, she’ll also be dishing out dango (rice flour dumplings) and a selection of petits fours.

Level 1 62/64 Little La Trobe Street, Melbourne