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Cheap eats

The Wooden Spoon.

First look: Sooshi Mango’s late-night panini bar ‘had to be’ on Lygon Street

Three doors down from the comedy trio’s restaurant, their follow-up, Sangaweech, has Big Nonna Energy. Expect orange Laminex, sandwiches with cheeky names, and tiramisu.

  • Tomas Telegramma
Osteria Luna’s muffuletta is quite literally stacked with delicious deli meats.

Nine CBD lunches worth heading into the office for

Make going into the office the highlight of your week with lunches from $3.70, to a hefty muffuletta sandwich and a sashimi deal at a two-hatted restaurant.

  • Isabel Cant
Desserts are king.

Ease back into office life with 11 new city spots for lunch, coffee and afternoon treats

Beat the back-to-work blues with breaks centred on cake, bargain lunch plates, iced matcha and even icier coffee.

  • Tomas Telegramma
Riverside Deli first opened on Flinders Street in the early 1990s.

As nostalgia dominates food, why is the Aussie lunch bar dying out?

Once a staple, the cafe-meets-lunch bar loved by tradies is fading fast, while pubs and milk bars are riding a wave of nostalgia. Can the old-school Aussie cafe be revived?

  • Quincy Malesovas
Bistra’s vintage chrome-and-tile facade.

20 banging BYO restaurants from the Good Food Guide

From a forever-busy corner wine bar with great snacks to a raucous spot for grilled meat on sticks, these Victorian restaurants are the ones to know when you want BYO (plus, updated corkage info).

  • Frank Sweet and Good Food Guide reviewers
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Steak frites made with wagyu flank at Common Cuts, a new city grill.

It’s wall-to-wall wagyu, starting at $28.50, at this new CBD grill

Offering steak and chips for under $30, the new venue is banking on bargain pricing to shake up Melbourne’s steak scene.

  • Emma Breheny
Moonhouse’s weekly oyster and fizz initiative runs each Thursday from 5.30pm.

From bargain breakfast to classy date night: 10 deals for a skint January in Melbourne

Broke again? How about that! Console your wallet after an exxy festive season with $2 oysters, $20 pasta, and all-you-can-eat Malaysian.

  • Frank Sweet
Beach House cafe and kiosk is right on the sand.

Five top Melbourne swimming spots and where to snack afterwards

From prawn rolls with potato-crisp crunch to North African surf’n’turf and cool pastel-toned desserts, we’ve found Melbourne’s best post-swim eats – and timed the trip for you.

  • Aastha Agrawal
Gingerbread bun with cinnamon cognac glaze and gingerbread cookie at Ard, Stanmore.

One of the most anticipated bakeries of 2025 is launched with pistachio banoffee pie and more

Popular plant-based micro bakery Ard opens its first bricks-and-mortar in the inner west, selling gingerbread buns mango sponge cake and miso caramel cookies.

  • Bianca Hrovat
Hannah Green’s Daphne is a pub, wine bar and restaurant rolled into one neighbourhood institution.

$15 martinis, midnight spag and Bloody Mary salad. Inside Lygon Street’s new ‘public house’

Hatted Etta restaurant’s owner has today opened a more easygoing and economical venue, Daphne, just down the road. It’s “fun, loose and for you to use as you see fit”.

  • Tomas Telegramma