Victoria’s New Restaurant of the Year finalists are...

We’re used to hot Melbourne bars being hidden down obscure laneways or tucked away on rooftops but this year’s The Age Good Food Guide Best New Restaurant contenders are also notable for being hard to find.

There’s Matsu, a four-seat sushi den accessible via a tiny doorway jammed between shuttered daytime businesses. Fellow Japanese player Yugen Omakase is in a discreet nook in Yugen Dining, an otherwise splashy South Yarra dining palace.

Reine is expansive and dramatic once you enter the soaring marble, granite and limestone dining room in a former stock exchange but walking in off Collins Street feels more like an after-dark appointment at a safety deposit box than a sought-after time slot at a hot restaurant.

Then there’s Julie at Abbotsford Convent, which has transformed a dining room for ‘wayward’ women into a light-filled and elegant city expression of paddock to plate dining.

Clover, a wine bar on Swan Street, Richmond, is the only Aurum Poultry Co. Best New Restaurant nominee playing it straight with street frontage. There’s even a view to the kitchen that is visible from the tram rattling past.

Restaurateurs land on locations for all kinds of reasons. For Hansol Lee at Footscray’s Matsu, a suburban hideout with affordable rent means that he can restrict his offering to just four customers at a time.

“With four diners, I can keep the quality where I want it and I can change the menu when I want to,” he says. “I want to touch every piece of food with my hand. Six or eight people would make it too hard to keep the same standard. I would rather have a small venue, serve four with confidence and be able to talk to everyone.”

“Melburnians love something surreptitious; finding a venue is part of the allure.”

Rebecca Yazbek

Julie is born from proximity and opportunity, with executive chef Julieanne Blum working at a venue called Cam’s on the same property. When previous tenant Lentil As Anything vacated the current Julie premises, the cogs started turning.

“Cam’s doesn’t have a proper kitchen,” says Blum. “We have no extraction so we can’t create any smoke, we can only create steam. That’s fine for pasta but it means our menu is limited. At Julie, we don’t have those constraints. We can do some of the things we’ve been wanting to do.”

Blum is also keen to tap into the stories of the space and the women who were interred here. “It’s a dark history but I feel in line with those women and excited to honour them,” she says.

There was a very different history to consider at Reine & La Rue, which is in Melbourne’s 1890s stock exchange. Owners Rebecca and Al Yazbek navigated endless heritage stipulations during the $3-million-plus build but it was the location that Rebecca found most concerning. “It was the most daunting part of the process,” she says. “It’s not Flinders Lane, it’s not the Paris end, is it too far, will people come? I lost a lot of sleep over it.”

Her fears have been assuaged since opening. “All the tales about Melbourne diners being adventurous have been proven correct,” she says. “They love something surreptitious; finding a venue is part of the allure.”

Aurum Poultry Co. New Restaurant of the Year finalists

Clover

To call Clover a wine bar is to sell short the clever cooking that’s happening in an open kitchen whose beating heart is a hearth. Lightly smoked beef is piled on soldiers of toast for a perfect drinking snack, swordfish is expertly wood-grilled, and dessert might be roast lemon posset with yoghurt and Campari. It’s food full of character, while the space is a snapshot of Melbourne minimalism.

193 Swan Street, Richmond, clover.wine

Julie

From an airy, high-ceilinged room in Abbotsford Convent, three women are creating their ideal version of a dinner party. The best part? You’re invited. Chef Julieanne Blum, manager Anna Clifford and sommelier Claudelle Savannah offer a relaxed, generous brand of hospitality with simple, loosely European dishes, much of them inspired by the Convent’s kitchen garden. It’s a timeless package - and hard not to love.

1 St Heliers Road, Abbotsford, julierestaurant.com.au

Matsu

Worlds collide as you cross the threshold of an ultra-slender terrace building that sits on Footscray’s bustling Barkly Street. Serenity and simplicity envelope you, and provide a clue to what awaits you upstairs: a traditionally decorated Japanese restaurant with just four seats. All face chef Hansol Lee, whose craft of refined kaiseki cooking is your main focus for the night. It’s a brave concept - and nearly always booked out.

157A Barkly Street, Footscray, matsuxbar.com

Reine & La Rue

It’s certainly been the frothiest opening of the year, but this glamorous CBD venue has got the goods to back up the hype. Parfait that spreads like whipped butter, a raft of wood-grilled steaks, seafood towers and, alright, a hefty bill are as much a part of the Reine experience as hearing sharp intakes of breath and seeing phones held aloft, trying to capture the grandeur of it all.

380 Collins Street, Melbourne, reineandlarue.melbourne

Yugen Omakase

Omakase dining is, by its nature, full of thrills: you put yourself in the hands of the chef, who crafts a series of courses showcasing the best produce of the day. You sit at a counter beside strangers, all there for the same special experience. At Yugen Omakase, you’ve probably been trying for many months to secure one of its six seats for access to one of Australia’s most exciting young sushi chefs, Alex Yu. The restaurant’s dramatic design only quickens the pulse.

605 Chapel Street, South Yarra, yugendining.com.au

The winners of The Age Good Food Guide 2024 Awards will be announced on October 30, presented by Vittoria Coffee and Oceania Cruises. The Age Good Food Guide 2024 will be on sale from October 31