How many hotels make your bed with luxury Frette linen? And how many greet you the following day with the shoulder of a Portuguese suckling pig? Melbourne’s brand-new boutique hotel Melbourne Place is here, and it’s a thing of beauty. And with venerated restaurateurs Ross and Sunny Lusted and chef Nick Deligiannis in charge of the hotel’s dining programme, it’s every bit as delicious as it is comfortable.
Melbourne Place features three delicious venues. Two of them, the lovechildren of Ross and Sunny Lusted (The Bridge Room, Woodcut), inspired by the food and drink of Portugal and Spain: Marmelo a 90-seater with its own private dining room, and Mr Mills, its companion basement bar. “Marmelo is a restaurant I have wanted to open for many years,” says Ross. It pays homage to the small restaurants and bars of the Iberian Peninsula, he says, and has a “focus on showcasing the abundant resources of Melbourne markets as well as smaller Victorian producers”.
At Marmelo, that means starting with designer anchovies served à l’anglaise and crab pastéis de nata, before cracking into a menu that makes good use of Ross’s way with wood-fired cooking – grilled southern calamari with green coriander seeds and goat’s milk butter and chicken cooked over coals with African spices and dried chilli a couple of standouts. Its Portuguese influence runs right through to dessert, which features no shortage of egg custard and crisp pastry.
Downstairs, Mr Mills plies its trade deep into the evening with excellent cocktails, a wine list that draws from Victoria and beyond, and late-night suppers served in intimate booths. Grilled padrón peppers, poached tuna petiscos – Portuguese for tapas – and preserved angulas get you started, while quail escabeche, baked cod with roasted onions and potatoes, and prawns cooked with garlic and burnt chilli see you through till stumps.
Breakfast and brunch, meanwhile, takes place in Mid Air, and it sizzles at the celebrated hands of chef Nick Deligiannis, who’s returned to the city from a vaunted stint at Audrey’s in Sorrento. Good Food Guide’s Young Chef of the Year 2023, Deligiannis is topping crumpets with spanner crab, poached eggs and brown butter hollandaise, and filling breakfast focaccia with fried eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, cheddar and tomato jam. Mid Air is also open for lunch, dinner and supper, nixing the focaccia in favour of oysters, lobster doughnuts, Giaveri Osietra caviar, and flatbreads brimming with crumbed King George whiting at night. Mid Air is also be behind the hotel’s in-room offering, ergo, oysters in bed.
Melbourne Place, Mid Air, Marmelo and Mr Mills are open now. Whether it’s luxury crumpets for breakfast or wood-fired deliciousness a little later in the day, tasty things await at the top end of town. Welcome, Melbourne Place.
By Frank Sweet
Melbourne Place is the official accommodation partner for MFWF 2025.
Melbourne Place, 130 Russell St, Melbourne, open Friday 8 November, melbourneplace.com.au, @melbourneplace. For venue opening dates and details, follow @marmelorestaurant, @mrmillsbar and @midairmelbourne on Instagram.