Although Melbourne has no shortage of Thai restaurants , Merica Charungvat’s Thai Tide stands out from the crowd. You won’t find classic tom yum soup or pad thai here – instead, expect region-specific dishes rarely seen outside Thailand. The dynamic, share-friendly menu is backed up by a killer list of Australian natural wines and attentive service across two moody, neon-lit dining rooms.

You might start with a punchy peanut, lime and herb betel leaf wrap, then move on to chunks of crispy pork belly with Sriracha, or banana blossom done crudité-style with long beans, rainbow cauliflower and creamy red-curry dip. Mains include a flavour-bomb soup of chilli, gooey ant larvae, mushrooms and punchy herbs; tender pork belly stewed with cinnamon and star anise for 24 hours; and mackerel with a caramelised palm-sugar glaze and green-mango relish. For dessert, it could be coconut-custard pudding with coconut ice-cream, or a classic street food pick of green mango with chilli-shrimp paste.

While the food takes inspiration from Thailand’s regional cuisines, the drinks are mostly Australian. There’s a big emphasis on minimal-intervention wines, with around 40 bottles on offer. You might find easy-drinking bottles from Victoria’s Patrick Sullivan, See Saw from New South Wales, WA’s Dormilona or Smallfry, and Ngeringa from South Australia. There’s also a rotating by-the-glass selection of four wines, as well as non-alcoholic wines and beers from the local brewers and blenders at Sobremesa Fermentary. If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can order a disposable camera to your table (the team can even have your film developed off-site).

And it’s the kind of space worth capturing. Neon light panels give the interiors a red tint, from the granite flooring to the simple wooden seating to the plants growing along the walls. Zwei Interior Architecture (also behind Small Axe Deli ) led the design, bringing new life to the heritage-listed 19th-century building.