The best new restaurants and bars in Melbourne

From new rooftop bars to soon-to-open restaurants in the Melbourne CBD, there are always plenty of new venues to know about in Melbourne. Here, we've picked the most noteworthy venue openings to have on your radar in 2024.

Whether you're keen to know about the hotly anticipated new rooftop with Karen Martini leading the kitchen, or looking for a new neighbourhood eatery to visit, we have you covered.

In the CBD, Korean food is setting the city abuzz, with Doju opening on Collins Street. Mika Chae (whose surname you may recognise as the cousin of eponymous restaurant owner Jung Eun Chae) heads up the operation, slinging South Korean-meets-modern Australian snacks with an emphasis on using top-notch produce. This may mean charred leeks come with crisp chicken skin, cashew cream and brown butter; or West Australian marron is served with garlic butter, stinging nettle noodles and green sauce. There's also odes to some of Korea's most loved dishes including galbi (Korean beef short rib) with horseradish, shiitake mushroom and chive kimchi; and market fish hwe (a sliced raw fish dish) with sunrise lime, doenjang (fermented soy bean paste), cucumber and Yarra Valley roe.

Melbourne chef Mischa Tropp has taken over the former Mono XO space, opening Toddy Shop by Marthanden Hotel. The compact but flavourful eatery hones in on crisp South Indian dosas and flaky porota. A roster of specials – perhaps a spicy fish nadan (a Keralan tamarind fish curry) with Spanish mackerel; or pork pepper roast (a curry underpinned by black pepper and punchy green chilli) – bolster the menu, while golden ghee dosas are made daily. Alongside the kicking curries, there are wines and brews from local South Asian-Australian producers and an Indian disco soundtrack to keep things up-tempo. "This Toddy Shop is a replication of everything I love about the south of India, incredible food made by locals for locals at a great price," says Tropp. "This is a venue to make my community proud, something for people to cross town for because they miss the food of the motherland."

Karen Martini has stepped in as culinary director at the revamped Johnny's Green Room. The Carlton rooftop – which resides above swish grocery store King and Godfree – closed to transform the space, which now features a semi-retractable roof to allow for year-round enjoyment (while still being able to enjoy your Aperol Spritz in the sunshine). Owners Jamie Valmorbida and Luca Sbardella enlisted interior architect Dion Hall (who is responsible for Her's Music Room, Supernormal and Rare Hare) to oversee the renovation. Meanwhile Martini is overhauling the menu with her signature breezy but excellent Euro plates — think pizzas made with 48-hour slow fermented dough, or calamari spiedini with Italian-style tartare sauce and fried parsley.

In the CBD, a wine-focused bar-meets-cellar restaurant will open on Punch Lane, headed up by a group of sommeliers hoping to make rare wine allocations more accessible. Circl will see director Xavier Vigier (Ten Minutes by Tractor and Merivale) blend his love of his home country's (France) wines with Australian drops via a 1500-bottle wine list, with 120 bottles available by the glass. Executive chef Elias Salomonsson will oversee a food offering that stands up next to the lofty list.

Over in Collingwood, a new day-to-night dining destination with Latin American tunes, tipples and sticky snacks has opened. Pincho Disco may be an unlikely combination of terms (pincho meaning stick or skewer and disco referring to the music style as much as the club vibe) but together they form a lively late-night dining and cocktail spot on Cambridge Street.

Latin America will serve as the expansive brief for Pincho Disco, with chef Diego Cardenas taking over the Josper oven and woodfire-powered kitchen. The Colombian-born chef worked extensively across Spain and Peru before coming to Australia and will use this time to inform the menu. Cardenas plans to devote a section of the menu to the venue's namesake skewers. "Then [we'll do] a ceviche (raw fish cooked in tiger's milk), aguachiles (a Mexican-style ceviche) and crudo, done with octopus, snapper, kingfish, snapper, scallops and more," he says. This lighter, snackier part of the menu is ideal for quick bites across the two-level venue joined by cocktails, or for whetting the appetite before diving into the larger meat-focused plates.

Culinary director Jake Furst is excited to bring his experience in dry-ageing meats to Pincho Disco. "I have a love for dry-aged meats and steaks – we focused on the dry-ageing program at Cinder in Fitzroy," says Furst, speaking of a nearby venue in the wider Kickon Group, a collection of 10 kitchens which he oversees. The grills will also serve vegetarians with a golden Argentinian-style wood-fired cheese.

Melbourne's sky-high fine-diner Vue de Monde has reopened after a three-month refresh. Perched 55 floors above Melbourne's CBD, Vue de Monde and sister bar Lui dazzle with fresh interiors, a brand-new chef's tasting menu and the same spectacular city views. But it's not just a cosmetic lift, with the menu also undergoing considerable change during the restaurant's three-month closure. There are still inflections of creative director Shannon Bennett on the 18-plate tasting menu, alongside executive chef Hugh Allen's innovations that reflect his commitment to Australian provenance: grilled lamb sweetbreads with asparagus and fermented macadamia sauce; padrón peppers filled with heirloom eggplant cooked in wild nasturtium oil, and marron tail slowly grilled with fried native herb paste.

In more casual revamps, St. Cloud Eating House in Melbourne's Hawthorn East has welcomed a menu re-do from chef Jerry Mai. A reimagining of the Vietnamese menu sees Mai add more small plates (including grilled scallops with wild onion butter and nuoc mam; and seared sticky lamb ribs) alongside a refreshed cocktail menu.