Cuisine lanes of Melbourne

Melbourne’s inner city has a unique warren of cobbled, cuisine-rich lanes, arcades and catwalks. You won’t find a more concentrated or fascinating collection of food lanes in any Antipodean city.

In our first cuisine lane tourism guide of Melbourne we explore a concentrated string of alley ways that zig-zag south/north between Flinders Street near the Railway Station to Bourke Street Mall.

Think of Melbourne’s rectangular CBD as spilt north/south by Swanston St and bordered in the south by Flinders St (which runs parallel to the Yarra River) and in the north by La Trobe Street.

Our cuisine lane tour starts by entering Degraves Street (which is really a lane) that runs from Flinders Street - opposite the northern side of the central Railway Station, exactly halfway between Swanston and Elizabeth Streets (just look at your map).

This narrow thoroughfare has always been popular with city workers from the west side of the CBD making their way between the office and the central railway station. A pedestrian underpass between the two was built in the 1950s so commuters didn’t have to across busy Flinders Street.

Degraves Street is said to be one of the first of the city lanes to be converted into a food and beverage venue, starting an on-going trend to convert the city’s old service lanes and their roll-a-door storage spaces into more valuable retail space. Many of the old buildings in the lane were also converted into city apartments - a trend that swept inner Antipodean cities in the last decade of the 20^th century with the theory of recreating the village with a mix of commerce and residency. The idea would have worked a lot better if they had made sound-proofing the apartments compulsory.

A very busy thoroughfare for all sorts of commuters, this bluestone cobbled alley is now a comforting grungy congestion of cafes with the odd merchant, such as a wonderful artist supply shop, and a double row of hokey chairs and tables cluttering its centre. Anyone from Wellington especially, the gunge cuisine centre of NZ, will simply bask in its coffee supping tides of office workers, apartment dwellers, rail computers, visitors and film crews.

If you only have time to pick one venue, then our choice is Degraves Espresso, one of the original lane-way cafes set up at N^o 23-25 over 15 years ago. It features a typical window display of generously filled rolls and has a bevy of suitably tattooed and casual/snappy service staff.

At the time, summer 2009, a nosh-up of free-range eggs on toasted light rye with bacon, tomatoes and mushrooms was priced at A$15.50 with a glass of wine to quaff it down costing from A$5.80.

Remember – outside of NZ it is nearly always table service at cafes and none of our tedious counter-queuing to order and pre-pay. Ordering and payment is executed at the table.

 A dog-leg right

When you exit Degraves Street into Flinders Lane, turn right and a just few steps along is a short pedestrian crossing to Centre Place. Before you make the crossing, look behind you to the entrance of an educational institution (253 Flinders Lane) housing a couple of very interesting cafes: Journal at Shop 1 with its reading room layout and café blackboard menus; and the Journal Canteen on the mezzanine – an upstairs expansion of Journal with an Italian theme.

Crossing Flinders Lane into Centre Place

Centre Place has become, unintentionally, a popular tourist attraction, often featured in tourism promotion campaigns for the city.

The first half of the lane is lined with food venues, and then it disappears up a few stairs into the retail-focused Centreway Arcade.

In between is a small service lane covered in ‘preserved’ graffiti and posters that has become a popular site for guided mini-tours, film school field outings, overseas film crews looking for ‘cosmopolitan’ Melbourne, and even wedding parties. Local NZ councils should take note – civic vandalism may have similar commercial value to a world that has moved on from the late 20^th century ‘graffiti’ culture.

On the right corner of Finders lane and Centre Place is Centro Espresso with its window displays of the Lebanese bread wraps that are unique to this lane (see photo), wrapped around all sorts of fillings and costing about A$3.80. Another Centre Place venue worth slowing down for is Blufish with its casual seafood cuisine – think Melbourne CBD ‘fush & chups’. On its back wall is a mural painted by resident artist ‘Mikey’, whose works feature in many other outlets in this lane of more bars than you can count with a swizzle stick.

Heritage cuisine

Turn left out of the Centreway Arcade into Collins Street, walk 10 metres and then cross the pedestrian crossing to enter the mosaic tiled, Victorian-era Block Arcade, with its elegant Hopetoun tearooms in the entrance on the left (photo). Opened in 1892, the marble-topped tables, cake slices, scones and cup cakes in this venue are a history away from the previous lanes.

At the end of this elegant arcade, before it does a left hand turn, is Haig’s Chocolates from South Australia, a popular chocoholic haunt. The arcade then divides – one going west to Elizabeth Street and the other continuing north to Little Collins Street. The lane intersection is called Block Place and has a nest of elegant Italian-themed coffee houses with names like Café Duomo.

Emerging out into Little Collins Street, turn left a few steps and cross the road and you will find the Royal Arcade, another fine historic piece in the late Victorian/Edwardian tradition with black and white tiling and sky-lighted roof. Stop at the entrance next to the Italian café – Café Torta and look back and up at that lovely clock (photo).

As you walk up the Royal Arcade you will see a small lane called The Hub that doubles back to Little Collins St. It is noted for the Chocolate Hub and a little Indian restaurant called the Gourmet Curry Hut. Back into the Royal Arcade you might pass a retail shop with ‘handmade in NZ’ golliwogs in the window and, a few shops on, one of the Koko Back outlets with a focus on everything chocolate.

Out onto Bourke Street Mall and turn left. You are not far from the entrance to the David Jones department store food hall (downstairs) but a few metres on your right you will see The Walk Arcade – a long thin lane that double backs to Little Collins Street with upmarket Italian cafes, sushi outlets and the beautiful Le Laurent Bou Langerie Patisserie with its mosaic tiled floor and curved marble counter.

The dining lane

Hardware Lane, running south/north between Lonsdale Street and Little Lonsdale Street (west/east between Elizabeth and Queen Streets) is to the left of our first CBD cuisine lane focus, but deserves special mention as it has become a special attraction for cuisine tourists with its umbrella-lined, alfresco-style dining.

The strong links between Australia and New Zealand are not really appreciated by Kiwis (early Auckland, for instance, was heavily populated by Aussie colonists) so take note of the building at 63-73 Hardware Lane – a set of four warehouses designed by William Pitt, a Melbourne architect into the gothic revival trend who also designed the Princess Theatre in Melbourne and the State Opera House (originally the Grand Opera House) in Manners Street, Wellington, one of his last designs.

In the evening, Hardware Lane turns into a very bustling stretch of café/restaurant tables with menu touts soliciting your business with an energy that is very ‘European tourism’. Eateries are of a very good standard; check out the Golden Monkey on the left-hand side at the northern end - with its tiny lane-side bar with just a few tables and bar stools to watch the ‘foot parade’. Downstairs there’s a cavernous downstairs Hong Kong-style casual eatery with another ‘Asia meets Australia’ menu (and don’t we love Billy Kwongs in Crown Street Sydney?).

We are saving the other lanes in Melbourne’s CBD for future issues of Foodstyle Review, plus a review of the Queen Street Market food venue and other Melbourne CBD cuisine tourism highlights. So keep tuning in.

A word of warning for tourists using their feet in Melbourne – watch out for red light runners (although Aucklanders will be shy of them) before crossing intersections on pedestrian signals. And look side ways for cyclists who, unfretted by the city’s relatively flat terrain, appear at silent and often reckless speeds – especially on the South Bank promenade.

Spring 2009

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