The Weekly Review

In Melbourne we really are blessed with an abundance of good, often great, eating. Gastronomy is our middle name. Bistro Gitan is a welcome new asset.

On market days, the strip of restaurant stalls in Cecil Street attached to the South Melbourne Market seems popular, full of market shoppers and colleagues lunching. By night, the contrast can be stark.

The Soho end of Flinders Lane has a new lease of life. It already had ample energy with all the chic galleries and shiny dining at the likes of Coda and Cumulus. But now another eatery beginning with C has rekindled the Flinders Lane flame.

A quick pizza run just a few doors down from Hairy Canary, its older, better-known sibling, six-month-old Hairy Little Sista is vying for attention.

This gentrified corner pub, once the notorious ETs, is flanked by a Brutalist tower and a building site. But South Yarra’s smart set recognises one of its own when it sees it and has happily ignored the dodgy neighbours to mob the place since its debut.