There's no polite way to say it: Australia has a mess problem, and it's happening at the dinner table. New national research has found the country almost evenly split between diners who eat with surgical precision and those who give in to full, sauce-dripping chaos - and Betty's Burgers has built its biggest chicken launch yet around exactly that divide.

The brand's new dish, The Drizzler, has landed in restaurants for a limited time, and it's designed to work whichever camp you fall into. For Melbourne diners who've spent years debating whether a burger should be eaten with a knife and fork or straight out of the wrapper, this one feels personal.

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Just under an hour from Melbourne, tucked into the foothills of the Macedon Ranges, sits a private garden that opens its gates only once a year. This October, the Bolobek Garden Fair returns for its 12th year - and it remains one of Victoria's most cherished garden events, drawing green thumbs, food lovers and curious visitors alike to a setting as rich in history as it is in horticultural beauty.

With over 50 specialist stallholders, a keynote address from one of regional Victoria's most respected garden cooks, and a history stretching back to 1839, Bolobek offers something increasingly rare: a genuine celebration of community, nature and generosity, where every dollar raised goes back into the region that hosts it.

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The World Loves Melbourne is one of Melbourne's longest-running independent food, travel and lifestyle publications - read by people who are actively deciding where to eat, stay and go next.

Every month, 30,000+ readers come to TWLM for first-person, personally researched reviews rather than generic listicles - and a large share of that traffic lands directly on page one of Google for the venues, suburbs and experiences we cover. That means partner content doesn't just run once and disappear - it keeps working, month after month, for as long as the article stays ranked.

Why Partner With TWLM

• 30,000+ monthly readers, with strong returning-visitor engagement
• Multiple articles ranking on page one of Google for high-intent Melbourne search terms
• 37,000+ Instagram followers across TWLM's social channels
• A growing email newsletter, direct to inboxes of engaged Melbourne foodies and travellers
• 15+ years of editorial trust - TWLM content reads as genuine recommendation, not advertising
• Content that keeps earning attention long after launch day, thanks to lasting SEO value

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Ten of Australia's best bartenders. One whisky brand steeped in Scottish technique and Japanese craft. And a brief that had nothing to do with pouring the perfect drink, and everything to do with reading the person standing in front of you.

That was the challenge at the 2026 Nikka Perfect Serve Australian Final, held last night at Moondrop in Fitzroy, where Western Australian bartender Brendan Grey was crowned national champion. His winning cocktail, For Rhonda and Rita, was built as a tribute to his favourite regular at Tigerfish in Cottesloe, 70-year-old Rhonda, using lavender picked from her own garden alongside Nikka From the Barrel, honey syrup and a homemade hay and blackberry soda.

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Looking for the ultimate steak experience in Melbourne? There's a particular kind of restaurant confidence that comes from building an entire menu around one ingredient and daring you not to be impressed. La Madonna, perched on Level 3 of Next Hotel Melbourne, has done exactly that with An Ode to Westholme Wagyu - a five-course dégustation that we sat down to on a quiet Tuesday evening, curious whether a menu this singularly focused could actually sustain five courses without repeating itself. It can. Comfortably.

Westholme is one of Northern Australia's most respected Wagyu producers, prized for marbling that holds its structure under heat rather than simply melting into oiliness, and for a flavour that reads as savoury and mineral rather than one-note rich. Handing that raw material to Michelin-trained Executive Chef Jacopo Degli Esposti was always going to produce something worth writing about, and this menu is his love letter to the breed - carpaccio to consommé to crème brûlée, with barely a non-Wagyu ingredient in sight.

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By popular demand, Melbourne's most talked-about winter dining escape isn't going anywhere just yet. Fern's Hidden Winter Garden, the botanical conservatory experience at Fern Bar & Dining inside Hotel Indigo Melbourne Little Collins, has been extended through to Sunday 4 October - with a fresh spring makeover to match the change of season.

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Melbourne is "family friendly" and is one of those rare cities that genuinely delivers for families, whether you're visiting for a weekend or you've lived here for years and are always hunting for the next outing that will impress a six-year-old and a teenager in the same afternoon. From hands-on science museums to a zoo that's been delighting kids for over 160 years, the city and its surrounds pack an enormous amount of family-friendly fun into a compact, walkable footprint. Best of all, a lot of it is either free or very affordable, and almost everything is connected by Melbourne's iconic tram network.

Here's our definitive guide to the best family activities in Melbourne, covering everything from full-day adventures to short, sweet strolls you can slot in between meals.

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There's a particular kind of Melbourne dinner where the phone comes out before the fork does. I don't say that as a criticism — some rooms genuinely earn it. After 15-plus years reviewing this city's restaurants in person, the venues that photograph best are almost always the ones that were designed with real intent, not just a feature wall bolted on for the socials. We have eaten our way through most of the CBD's grand dining rooms and the inner suburbs' moodier corners chasing exactly this list, and what follows are the Melbourne restaurants that consistently deliver the shot and the meal.

From a 300-metre-high dining room over the MCG to a century-old mural-lined institution on Bourke Street, here are Melbourne's most Instagrammable restaurants worth booking a table — and charging your phone — for.

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