Melbourne - Friends, family, and a tour of food and drink

Melbourne

Our main plan for Melbourne was to eat, drink and socialise. We certainly achieved that. I mentioned that the Fitzroy area we were staying in was great for places to go out, and we valiantly ploughed our way through many of the options.

And when we needed an occasional respite, there were some lovely independent shops around, and a nice little market too.

Melbourne

It was an interesting place, as whilst it was certainly trendy - lots of hipster beards and man-buns - it wasn't that achingly hip, 'don't even try to get in if you aren't wearing the right uniform', kind of area, that personally I (a) don't meet the criteria, and (b) couldn't stand to go out in even if I did. It actually has a really relaxed and friendly feeling to it, much like most of the areas that we visited in fact. We loved it.

Melbourne

The area has developed a shabby look, with lots of dishevelled looking buildings, and graffiti. We heard that some of the establishments here have paid a lot of money to achieve just that right level of peeling paintwork, and the graffiti is not that awful tagging, but really rather impressive street art. We did wonder slightly about the syringes that we saw on the ground, but soon realised that the only drug at work here was sugar, as these were the syringes used to fill your designer doughnuts with your flavouring of choice.

Melbourne

Not that the look of the place went down too well with my aunt. While we were here, we met up with one of my dad's sisters, who emigrated to Australia around thirty odd years ago. I had never met her, so it was nice to have the chance to do so while we were here.

She and her husband collected us at our 'home' and were quite concerned that we were staying in such a bad area. We did reassure her that it isn't really like that, as did her daughter later, but I'm not sure she was convinced.

Chandon Winery, Melbourne

They drove us out to Mount Dandenong, where we were able to take in the view of the city, and have lunch, at a restaurant called Skyhigh. The food was plentiful, and the views were excellent. After lunch, we popped in to Chandon Winery for a taste of their wines, and then went out to their home, where we saw a resident kookaburra pop over for dinner. It was lovely to meet another branch of the family, and to see another side of Melbourne.

Kookaburra, Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Back in the city, the main hub in Fitzroy is Brunswick Street. We rather liked The Fitz, for a good lunch or brunch, and we couldn't resist trying out The Shifty Chevre, which as you might guess from the name, specialises in cheese. It is a great place for a cheese platter snack, especially if you come when one of their offers is on, such as when the sparkling wine is half price. However the main reason we came was to check out the cheesy cocktails. Honestly, I can't say that they were my favourite drinks, and I'm not really convinced of the merits of putting cheese in your drink as opposed to with it, but it was fun to try.

I had no complaints about the cocktails in two of the other establishments in the street though. The Black Pearl and The Alchemist were both excellent. the lists were interesting and varied, the staff were friendly, helpful and - most importantly - made wonderful cocktails. And whilst cocktails are rarely cheap, I thought that for drinks of this standard, in a city like Melbourne, they weren't too badly priced. I would highly recommend both places.

Melbourne

Somewhere else I would definitely recommend, is a restaurant called Charcoal Lane, in Gertrude Street. This place is a bit on the fancier side, but the food is great. It is a social enterprise project, that gives disadvantaged young people, many of whom are Aboriginal, a chance to have a fresh start and training, either in the kitchen or front of house.

The food is different too, with a focus on bush food, with options such as emu and wallaby, and other ingredients like lemon myrtle, wattleseed, rosella flower and muntrie berries.

A couple of streets over, technically in Collingwood rather than Fitzroy I think, is another road to check out - Smith Street. There is a huge range of eateries and bars here. We found a place that specialised in meatballs, which made a change, but perhaps wasn't as good as we'd have liked.

Melbourne

There was a rather nice wine bar called Smithward, which had only recently opened, and did a rather nice raclette. The owner was very interesting to chat to, and was taking the unusual approach of only stocking wines that he and his wife had tried at the winery in question.

Thankfully they have been to some nice wineries. And we really liked MJR TOM, which had friendly staff, good cocktails, and very tasty bomba and empanaditas.

Melbourne

We popped along to Carlton, where we caught up on a couple of films at the cinema, and we spent a lot of time in Melbourne just walking around some of these close by neighbourhoods, and taking in the city, stopping for refreshment and people watching, and it was an excellent place for that. One of the things that we liked about the look of Melbourne, was the lovely old buildings with beautiful ironwork.

Our friend who picked us up when we arrived lives in Brunswick, so we had a good look around there too, finding some great bars, and a lovely tapas and salsa place, that may have been Basco's but I forgot to write any of the names down so I'm not sure. We also met up with her and some other friends at Federation Wharf in the CBD. We just about made it safely through Federation Square, despite the best efforts of the local zombie wannabees.

One last place I should mention, just for the sheer wackiness of it, is a cocktail bar that was recommended to us by a number of people. It is called Madame Brussells, and it is set up like a lawn tennis club. The staff are dressed in tennis whites, there is fake grass on the floor and everything is just a little bit camp and kitsch. To be honest, I wouldn't recommend it on either price or quality of the drinks, but it is amusing to stop off for a pitcher on the terrace.

Overall, we really liked Melbourne. It was a city that we could easily imagine living in for a while, far more so than Sydney.

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne