I’ve worked in and around South Melbourne long enough now that I like to think I notice when a new place opens before the queues do. Usually it’s because I’ve driven past the front three times that week trying to find a park, but let’s not split hairs.
My patch has always been a bit broader than just South Melbourne proper. Between the various offices I’ve had over the years, plus a solid six years of op shopping along Bay Street in Port Melbourne, I tend to keep half an eye on Southbank and Albert Park too. So when people ask me what’s actually new to eat around here in 2026, I take the question fairly seriously.
First, a bit of context. 2025 was an absolute monster year for openings on this side of town. Aegli took over the old Lume site on Coventry Street, Pizzateca Lupa turned up inside the South Melbourne Market, Moon Mart landed on Clarendon Street and the George Hotel came back to life on Cecil Street. Great for the waistline, terrible for my Silver-tier parking ambitions. But that was all last year, and I keep having to remind people of it. 2026 has been a quieter, more considered year locally, more about big reopenings and neighbourhood spots than a flood of brand-new dining rooms. Here’s everything that has genuinely opened so far, plus the ones still to come.
O’Connell’s Hotel
Address: 407 Coventry Street, South Melbourne (corner of Montague Street)
Website: oconnells.com.au
Previously: the same site, trading as O’Connell’s under its old operators before the reno
If you’ve been anywhere near the corner of Montague and Coventry Streets lately, you’ll have noticed O’Connell’s is back. This one isn’t really a new business replacing an old one. It’s the same O’Connell’s Centenary Hotel that’s stood on that corner since 1873, brought back to life after a big renovation. It’s often called one of Melbourne’s first gastropubs, and Greg Malouf and Adrian Richardson both did time in that kitchen over the years, so when it went quiet, a few of us at the office quietly assumed the worst.
Good news. It reopened back in May, now run by the team behind Prahran’s Flying Duck Hotel, with managing director Brenton Lang and head chef Michael Conlon steering the ship. The kitchen has gone hard on wood fire, with a Josper oven fuelled by red gum and a big lean towards Australian native ingredients like pepperberry, bush tomato and finger lime. The dishes people keep telling me about are the wood-fired prawns with smoked macadamia butter and bush tomato, the saltbush lamb shoulder that’s slow-cooked overnight before it hits the Josper, and the raw Victorian tuna with green apple and grapefruit. There’s still plenty of proper pub comfort on there too, so don’t panic. And for the history nerds, there’s a Silk Road Martini on the drinks list as a nod to Malouf’s Middle Eastern menus from the ’90s.
Inside there’s a front bar, a 48-seat dining room and a few private rooms upstairs, but the bit I care most about is the 75-seat terrace running along the Clarendon Street side. It’s covered and heated, which in a Melbourne winter is the whole ballgame. This is the kind of restaurant outdoor seating you’ll actually want to sit at, rather than the sad two-chairs-and-a-wobble situation a lot of pubs try to pass off. If you’ve read my Rising Sun review, you’ll know I’m a sucker for a good undercover outdoor setup, and O’Connell’s has clearly thought about it properly.
Upper Middle
Address: 34 Eastern Road, South Melbourne (ground floor of the 34 Eastern office building)
Website: uppermiddle.com.au
Previously: a two-storey vacant office building, demolished to make way for the new tower
This one’s a bit closer to my heart, because it’s on Eastern Road, basically down the way from the Rising Sun Hotel, which means it’s dangerously close to a couple of my old offices. Upper Middle opened on Monday 4 May and is the first venue of its own for Franck Sammut, who spent something like 18 years running the floor at France-Soir before deciding to do his own thing. It sits on the ground floor of 34 Eastern, a shiny new seven-storey office block (marketed as The Terraces) that went up on the site of an older, long-vacant two-storey office building, so nobody’s crying over a lost restaurant here.
The whole pitch is that hospitality doesn’t need to be complicated, and honestly, after some of the “experiences” I’ve been subjected to lately, I’m inclined to agree. It’s an all-day spot built around pizza and baguette sandwiches, with a European-leaning brunch backing it up. Head chef Lakshay Kapoor is running the kitchen. The baguettes are a shorter 30-centimetre style, baked at Baker In The Rye and finished off in-house, with fillings like DOP prosciutto and stracciatella, or house-cured salmon with dill cream, fennel and capers. The pizzas keep it restrained, with a solid margherita, a potato, rosemary and parmesan number, and an ‘nduja one with jalapeño honey that I’m told is the sleeper hit. Coffee is St Ali, pastries come in from AM Bakehouse in Glen Iris, and the pasteis de nata are from Casa Nata.
Right now it’s daytime trade with some casual evening service Thursday to Saturday, so it’s very much a walk-in, grab-a-baguette, no-fuss kind of place. There’s a more formal dining room planned for later in the year, so keep it on the list.
Coupette
Address: Hannah St Hotel, 19 Walker Street, Southbank (bistro on the Queensbridge Street corner)
Website: hannahsthotel.com/venues/coupette
Previously: a Crown taxi rank, later a public basketball court with artwork by Reko Rennie
Now we drift a bit east. There’s a strange little pocket tucked under Queensbridge, right where South Melbourne bleeds into Southbank, that’s always felt more like a place you walk through than a place you stop. That’s exactly the spot Nathan Toleman’s Mulberry Group (the crew behind Hazel and Dessous) picked for Coupette, which swung its doors open just before Christmas and has been drawing locals ever since. The whole Queensbridge Building it lives in is brand new, and if you’ve been around a while, you’ll remember this corner as a Crown taxi rank, and more recently a public basketball court painted up by Indigenous artist Reko Rennie.
It’s an all-day corner bistro and bar inside the new, Flack Studio-designed Hannah St Hotel, and it leans into that slightly French, slightly Italian European vibe without getting precious about it. Executive chef Andrew Beddoes has built a menu of the greatest hits done well, with steak frites, oysters, tartare, schnitzel, pasta and a burger that people seem genuinely worked up about. The room is all terrazzo, marble-topped tables and banquettes, and the drinks list is the fun kind, with a tableside Coupette 75 if you want a bit of theatre with your afternoon. It seats around 66 and is happy to take you from a morning coffee through to a late one, which is my favourite kind of venue. It’s technically Southbank rather than South Melbourne, but it’s close enough to the Market that I’m counting it.
Propeller
Address: Level 10, Hannah St Hotel, 19 Walker Street, Southbank
Website: hannahsthotel.com (no dedicated page yet)
Previously: part of the same new Hannah St Hotel build, on the old Crown taxi rank site
Coupette is only the start of what the Mulberry Group is doing in that building. There are five venues planned inside the Hannah St Hotel all up, and the next one people are watching is Propeller, up on level 10.
This is the interesting one. Rather than a fixed restaurant, Propeller is being run as a chef residency. A chef pitches a concept, the group helps them get it up and running for a four-month stint, and if it flies, they can go on to open it properly somewhere of their own. So the plan is that what’s cooking up there will change a few times a year, which is a genuinely clever idea and gives me a reason to keep coming back. Given how good the ground-floor bistro turned out, I’ll happily ride a lift up ten floors to see what they do with it.
Albert Park Lake House
Address: 1/10 Aquatic Drive, Albert Park (northern end of Albert Park Lake)
Website: no venue site live yet. Details via the Parks Victoria announcement
Previously: The Point (fine diner, closed 2018) and then the Sichuan restaurant Hidden Jade (closed 2021)
Last one, and it’s the one I’m most curious about, partly because it’s right on the edge of my old stomping ground near Albert Park. The long-empty pavilion at the northern end of Albert Park Lake is being brought back to life as the Albert Park Lake House. Plenty of us still call this site The Point, after the waterside fine diner that ran for about 21 years, cycling through some serious chefs before closing in 2018. After that, the Sichuan restaurant Hidden Jade operated out of the space until it too closed in 2021, and the building has sat largely idle ever since.
Australian Venue Co has taken a 21-year lease and is tipping a reported $3.4 million into the fit-out, with the doors expected to open around the middle of 2026. The plan is a casual bistro on the ground floor with a balcony looking out over the water, the sailing boats and the city skyline, plus function and event space above. It’s technically Albert Park rather than South Melbourne, but it’s a short lap of the lake from here, and after decades of that beautiful site sitting mostly idle, I’ll be wandering over to have a nosy the moment it opens.
A Quick Note Before You Go
That’s the honest state of play for 2026 so far. Bay Street in Port Melbourne has stayed fairly steady this year, and a lot of the big headline openings have been over in the CBD rather than on our doorstep, so I’ve kept this list to the places that have genuinely opened (or are about to) around South Melbourne and its immediate neighbours.
I’ll update this article as more places open their doors. If I’ve missed one that’s opened this year, or you’ve spotted a “coming soon” sign going up somewhere on Clarendon, Coventry, Bay or Bridport Street, let me know and I’ll go investigate, preferably over lunch.
