The exciting new restaurants and bars coming soon to a location near you

Victorian restaurateurs are leaving 2023 in the dust, with new venues opening at a clip virtually as soon as the clock strikes midnight.

In Lorne, David Moyle’s latest project The Clam will open in early January to make the most of the annual swell of holidaymakers seeking cold beers, hot chips and lazy-day dining. The seaside shack plans to tap into exactly that mood with deck seating and a rotating line-up of food vendors.

By mid-January, Geelong fine-diner Igni will have morphed into Songbird. The smoke and fire will remain (as will owners Aaron Turner and Joanna Smith), but the flavours are now Thai, the room is splashed with colour, and the pitch is more casual. From chef Nathan Lancaster, expect grilled half-quail, fire-roasted mushrooms and snacks like crisp pork crackling, bolstered by sticky rice, smoked dried shrimp and sour-sweet-spicy dipping sauces.

Castlemaine will be a destination for fans of French farmhouse cooking when Ali Currey-Voumard, previously at Public Wine Shop and Tasmania’s Agrarian Kitchen, fires the pans at boutique accommodation Temperance House from mid-January. A Table Bistro will run throughout summer and into autumn, serving peak produce of the season from small farms.

Another win for the regions will be Babae, the new fine-diner at Hotel Vera in Ballarat. Led by chef Tim Foster and partner Peter Barton, who ran Kyneton’s Source Dining to great acclaim, the restaurant replaces Underbar, which returned to its original location in August after a short stint at the hotel.

In the city, others will struggle to keep up with Chris Lucas, who has a bumper year planned. In June, he’ll open an as-yet-unnamed casual restaurant next door to Hawker Hall in Windsor, serving a cuisine that “leans into a core part of the Lucas stable”, according to a spokeswoman. His long-awaited French splash, Batard, is slated for a spring opening on Bourke Street. One of his more ambitious projects, it spans four levels with a rooftop, oyster bar on the ground floor, and a darker, moodier space for late nights. While French food is the focus, don’t expect purist interpretations. Throughout the year, Chin Chin will run a series of pop-ups in one of Lucas’s favourite towns in Victoria. Watch this space.

Later in the year, Merivale hopes that its Flinders Lane project, Tomasetti House, will be bustling with diners in at least some of its seven levels. Executive chef Jowett Yu has been spending lots of time in Taiwan and Hong Kong doing research.

The long-awaited Italian market hall of a food-lover’s dreams, Mercato Centrale, will also be ready for action in 2024. Building is in full swing in the heritage-listed Macpherson building on Collins Street, which will be home to 23 artisans over two levels.

Entrecote’s masterminds, Jason Jones and Brahman Perera, are applying their keen eye to the food and culture of Sri Lanka at Hopper Joint, an homage to Perera’s heritage and upbringing that opens in late February. His mother will prepare Sri Lankan snacks known as short eats, while a changing line-up of curries will be complemented by unlimited hoppers (fermented rice pancakes) made in an open kitchen, with illustrations on the wall showing how to eat them with your hands. Like Entrecote, the restaurant will be on Greville Street, Prahran.

The team is slowly colonising the street, also adding Gigi Salon a Champagne in March, a petite bar with big ambitions. Styled on luxurious lobby bars of the world, with a dollop of Parisian glamour and Melbourne edge, Gigi will offer 10 champagnes by the glass, late-night snacks and afternoon tea on weekends.

Craft brewers Moon Dog are also dreaming big with their Footscray beer hall, which, in true Moon Dog style, will look nothing like a beer hall. Opening in March on the site of the original Franco Cozzo furniture showroom, the three-level space will channel the Wild West across food and design, from a mechanical bucking bull to a pianola bar to a cacti-filled rooftop bar.

Fans of Filipino food will have another address to frequent when Askal opens in the CBD by early autumn. Fine-dining star and Kariton Sorbetes co-owner John Rivera is behind the project, and has assembled a talented cast of Filipino culinary talent for the contemporary restaurant and bar that will showcase dishes from The Philippines’ many regional cuisines.

Lee Ho Fook’s Victor Liong is stretching his wings with the more casual, workday dining-focused Silk Spoon, opening around April in a revamped office tower at 500 Bourke Street. Quick lunches, snacks with after-work drinks – plus heat-and-eat dinners from a retail section – will draw from the flavours of the Silk Road trade route between China and Europe.

Early in the year, Angie Giannakodakis (Epocha) and James Klapanis (Young’s Wine Rooms, St Cloud Eating House) will open Orlo, a Collingwood spot for contemporary Greek cooking. Giannakodakis has assembled a team of people that she knows and trusts, going back to her Press Club days.

Pizza pros D.O.C. are planting the flag in St Kilda, taking over a space in the luxury Saint Moritz apartments on the foreshore. Doors should be open by February. The opening – in the same month as Rinaldo Di Stasio’s art gallery above his Fitzroy Street restaurant, Cafe Di Stasio – could spell a turnaround in St Kilda’s fortunes.

Spazio Di Stasio will show a new artwork by frequent Di Stasio collaborator Shaun Gladwell, while Cafe Di Stasio will return to business as usual for the first time since the pandemic. Next door, Bar Di Stasio will hone its offering to Neapolitan street food.

On the other side of town, another Italian stalwart is shaking things up. Carlton’s Scopri is adding Bar Olo next door, named after the sought-after wine made in Piedmont. When it opens in February, it will offer its namesake, naturally, but also barolo chinato, a digestivo that works well in a spritz, alongside northern Italian snacks, pasta and beef carpaccio.