Where To Eat (and Drink) Right Now: Australia’s Best Openings in May

It’s been a bang-up month for new restaurant, bar and pub openings, no matter which city you live in. From a restaurant changing the dining-out game in Perth to a humble-but-great wine bar in Melbourne, this month’s best new venues are enough excuse in themselves to book a city break to try ’em out. Happy (and delicious) travels.

Melbourne

Enoteca Zingara

Enoteca may translate from Italian as “wine library”, but visit The Boot itself and you’ll find they’re actually more like elevated wine shops and bars with excellent snacks. Enoteca Zingara snugly fits that brief. Its wine list – of mostly Italian drops, alongside a clutch of French, Spanish and Australian options – is available by the glass, or you can pick up a bottle to take home. We recommend nabbing one of the 34 seats, tuning your ears in to the Italo-disco soundtrack, and exploring the pan-Italian menu, which heavily features the country’s various breads, including sardenaira, a cheese-less pizza-like bread from Liguria topped here with tomato, olives, capers and anchovies. Bigger appetites can tuck into braised rabbit with tonnato (a creamy Italian condiment typically made with tuna, anchovies, lemon juice, olive oil and mayonnaise) and pork-rib meatballs. Time your visit for aperitivo hour (4pm to 5pm), when Peronis and Campari are $6 and served alongside gratis snacks – such as hot salami or potato and rosemary focaccia – Italian-style.

Sydney

The Hook

New Kings Cross bar The Hook is like an old-school oyster saloon meshed with an Irish pub that also does great cocktails, has a drinking-friendly food menu and gloriously eclectic decor featuring treasures collected by owner David Spanton (Piccolo Bar , Vermuteria) over the years: vintage beer lights, a model ship and a wall of oyster shells. Oysters are on the food menu, too. Theatrically shucked to order, plump bivalves come in their half-shell; grilled Rockefeller-style; jazzed up with bacon, cheese or garlic; or immersed in a deep shot glass full of vodka and Bloody Mary. (The last one’s a spicy slap in the face, the perfect wake-up if you want your night to stretch on.) The sultry red-lit bar also does a cracking trade in simple, classic cocktails, including the Black Velvet, in which Guinness and prosecco meet in a flute, and three takes on the Martini. Beyond the oysters, the food menu stars piping-hot fries, an LP’s hotdog and a simple burger.

Adelaide

Don’s Deli

Don’s Deli, a new fuss-free hole-in-the-wall focaccia joint, isn’t reinventing the wheel – instead you’ll find classic Italian flavour combinations that don’t mess with tradition. Sourdough focaccia comes fresh or toasted and packing porchetta with cavolo nero, potato cream and rosemary, or layers of mortadella with creamy stracciatella, pistachio and chilli honey. Other sandwiches bring together deli meats with chilli and bitey provolone piccante, or prosciutto with olives, artichoke and smoky scamorza. In another nod to Italy’s dining culture, espressos are just $2 a pop (you can also get batch brew and milk coffees) and are an ideal accompaniment to pastries from nearby Prove Patisserie.

Brisbane

The Rose & Crown

British pub culture has arrived in Brisbane in the form of The Rose & Crown – and it’s the real deal thanks to Alex Derrick, who spent the last 24 years steeped in Blighty’s pub culture, working at and opening quintessential English pubs. Like the best British boozers, The Rose & Crown is a meeting place for people of all ages; you won’t find pokies and parmies, but you’ll definitely find mahogany bars, traditional cask ales, pints of Guinness, an old-world wine list and classic Sunday roasts – Yorkshire puddings and all. Board games are on hand for whiling away lazy weekends and, besides the roasts, the menu includes British standards like Scotch eggs, beer-battered fish’n’chips with mushy peas, and steak and Guinness pies.

Perth

Gibney

The ocean views are just the beginning at Gibney, a new French brasserie-inspired restaurant that’s shaking up Perth’s upscale dining scene. Local produce is key to chef James Cole Bowen’s menu, which puts small-but-impactful twists on classic European and American brasserie dishes. Beef tartare is jazzed up with charcoal-infused mayonnaise, while the Waldorf salad swaps out traditional apple for in-season nashi pear. While the vast drinks menu – including Perth’s largest champagne list – will appeal to all tastes, it’s the cocktails made tableside at gold-trimmed trolleys that really stand out, in particular the smoked Negroni, which is made with gin, honeycomb vermouth and coffee-stained Campari.

Additional reporting from Jo Rittey, Grace Mackenzie, Daniela Frangos, Daniel Wilson and Clare Ryan.