My suburb may be home to gangsters, students and rats, but its food can heal a broken heart

It was the summer of ’21, peak season for being newly single, and I’d just moved to Carlton. My ex, bless him, helped carry my worldly possessions (boxes of books and an Ikea lamp) from our neatly stacked Brunswick East apartment to the other end of Lygon Street.

My friends asked why I’d chosen Carlton over trendier suburbs like Fitzroy or Collingwood. I had to agree with them. There’s something a little uncool about Carlton – though it’s hard to put my finger on what.

Carlton’s got just as much grit as Brunswick, with its gangland past, graffiti, and clusters of faded housing commission blocks. And it’s not boring, either. It’s got all the inner-north trimmings: gift shops, wine bars, theatres, and batch brew. Even Julian Assange did a stint during his cyber-goth raving days in the ’90s, getting loose on the sticky dance floor at Dream, a former nightclub on Queensberry Street.

Maybe the best way to describe the vibe is that: if Collingwood is the grungy youngest child, then Carlton is the fun, single aunt — a little eccentric, slightly chaotic, but always up for a good time. She knows where to spend a swanky night (Carlton Wine Room), a chill Monday evening (Cheap Mondays at Cinema Nova), and where to find the best pasta and espresso: Lygon Street’s Little Italy, obviously.

The move here turned out to be a great decision for me. My housemates, Lauren and Sophie, were experts at plying me with Cadbury milk chocolate, reruns of Married At First Sight, and cider at Green Man’s Arms. One particularly hot day, Sophie – who was known to rage about how the Woolworths in Carlton was “the worst Woolworths in Australia” (post-apocalyptic interiors and stock levels) – and I had been playing table tennis and drinking pet nat in our courtyard for hours when we decided to venture out in search of some action. Lucky for us, it could be found only two doors down: a uni party in full swing.

These kinds of events happened pretty often, thanks to the proximity of RMIT and Melbourne Uni. I was constantly envious of the students stretched out on nature strips on inflatable mattresses, gathered around stained trestle tables with eskies full of seltzer.

With that in mind, we waltzed straight through the front door in our gym shorts, having already decided that if anyone questioned why two women who looked a little too old to be there had shown up uninvited, we’d say we knew “Tom.” It worked because each time we said it, the response was, “Everyone loves Tom.”

This particular share house on Elgin Street was classic: milk crates for shelves, sauce-stained dishes piled high in a low, industrial sink. It reminded me of John Birmingham’s Carlton setup – the one immortalised in He Died with a Felafel in His Hand. His crumbling five-bedroom terrace had an outdoor toilet, no fridge, air thick with cigarette smoke, and constant low-level psychological warfare over unpaid electricity bills.

My friend Mikey had a similarly terrible share house, which sat directly across from Melbourne General Cemetery – a quiet sprawl of cast-iron pavilions and gothic bluestone chapels. It’s the eternal home of six Australian prime ministers, including Sir Robert Menzies and half of Bob Hawke (his ashes are divided between Melbourne and Sydney). Mikey’s place was so grimy, he wined and dined his dates on the cemetery’s tan grass instead. (I don’t think there were many second dates.)

Sophie, Lauren and I, on the other hand, have a fridge with a shelf for each of us, a bedroom each, and the luxury of an indoor toilet. There is a mould problem. A rat problem. And, come spring, a slug problem. But, like Mikey, John Birmingham, and most Carlton locals really (thanks to the suburb’s proximity to everything), we have cheap Aperol spritzes and stracciatella gelato just a few streets away.

We have piadinas at Brunetti and vegetarian baguettes at Heart of Carlton – still rocking ’70s pricing: five bucks for lunch, two for a coffee. We have animatronic T-rexes roaring inside the Melbourne Museum, a sweaty ball pit courtesy of Ballers Clubhouse, the second-largest screen in the world (an IMAX in Germany swiped our crown), not one but two Readings bookstores – right next to each other – and Nathan the Carrot Man: a roaming performance artist who lifts the spirits of Melbourne’s inner-north with the help of a giant carrot. (He’s not technically ours; he might belong to some enchanted place like Daylesford – but I’m claiming him anyway.)

There is some uncertainty about Carlton’s future. Among the swanky wine bars and galleries are the oft-overlooked commission housing towers that won’t feature in the backdrop of those glossy property brochures but are just as much part of the neighbourhood. They’re a reminder that the suburb isn’t entirely gentrified. Those towers at half a dozen sites across Carlton are set to be demolished and rebuilt, and the residents (like those living in several public housing sites across Melbourne) face eviction. A fix for concrete, maybe, but not for the vibrant migrant communities inside and those facing uncertainty after calling the towers their home for decades.

The thing I like about living here is that Carlton is not trying to be cool. It is comfortable with its hodgepodge of cuisines and characters. As Jay from Carlton hairdresser Chainsaw Massacre, where I get my fringe trimmed, has told me, “You never know who’s going to walk through the door. The suburb has never felt better.”

Carlton might not have the edgy clout of its inner-north family – the thrifted swagger of Brunswick, the art-school grit of Fitzroy, or even North Carlton’s leafy-cool – but she’s got Tom. And honestly, she’s a pretty great place to fall apart and piece yourself back together again.

Nina Culley is a writer and critic who specialises in theatre, literature, and the arts.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.