Rummage

All class is Handsome Steve. Dressed in a torn cream business shirt, tie, sporting a tomato sauce stain and brillcream to his eyebrows, he is a demanding publican. 

You'll be right if you're in the market for an UGLY BISCUIT, THE  intriguing FAT BOY or have something to say about the GEELONG PREMIERSHIPS 1925 through to 2011. For God's sake don't ask for TEA and nobody mention SOY or SKINNY nothin. TWISTIES are ok and not sure what the GHERKIN OR OLIVE are served with but they are ok too.

A man of very definite opinions is Handsome Steve and between you and me more windswept and interesting than handsome but it's all in the eye of the beholder I suppose.

Don't go to Melbourne without resting your elbow on this bar.

Handsome Steve's House of Refreshment

The Abbotsford Convent, 1/1 St Heliers St, Melbourne

I love the story that comes with the title of this bar in Fitzroy. It involves a Russian immigrant making vodka in his underpants during the Depression and locals using the code phrase 'let's get naked for satan' to sample the illicit brew after all the local pubs had closed. Go to the website for the the real story.

The other awesone thing about Naked for Satan are their Pintxos - a Basque version of tapas which are all 80 cents each. You can serve yourself from the bar which holds an amazing array of delectables and then a waiter is in constant rotation with hot pintxos from the kitchen. Payment is via an honesty system based on toothpicks in a jar. I promise you will roll out of here satisfied and only $5 the worse for wear. Of course that's not accounting for the vodka.

Naked For Satan - 285 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

Industria, 202 Gertrude St, Fitzroy

This vintage homewares shop has a really well-edited collection of vintage clothes. Take your time, there are some good bits.

Shappere 19 Smith St, Fitzroy

I'm sure I've mentioned this place before but they deserve another one. Look out particularly for their excellent vintage shoes and leather belts.

Guy Matthews, 154 Johnston St, Fitzroy

Sigh! Lovely installationesque homewares pieces. Need to inject some quirk? Look no further.

Tarlo & Graham 60 Chapel St, Windsor

You have to love an establishment with a varied collection of vintage medical paraphernalia. The Frenchman being the committed hypochondriac that he is was much taken with this section. Beautiful industrial pieces and a disturbing array of elk horns. There's a great interview with the shop's founder here.

Galerie Montmartre 197b Brunswick St, Fitzroy

Due to circumstances byond my control, I have never been to this shop, (I am somewhat geographically challenged). Specialising in original vintage posters from all over the world, perhaps you could go for me??

 

The Commoner, 122 Johnston St, Fitzroy

Best eating in Melbourne to date. This restaurant is doing splendid things with the freshest ingredients possible for a low, low price tag. Have a Kir Royale to start and let the food whisper sweet nothings in your  ear.

Pellegrini's, 66 Bourke St, Melbourne.

Coffee taken very VERY seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I have yet to see the bloke behind the machine crack a smile. Excellent ricotta cakes.

Journal Canteen, 253 Flinders Ln Melbourne

Not really a menu, more a directive, with only a few things on the menu, this is an exercise in trust. Excellent cannoli! Only low point was the stove-top coffee but forgiveness as they say is divine, especially if there's more cannoli in the offing.

 

Mario's 303 Brunswick StFitzroy

Old-school waiting staff, old-school menu, (for lord's sake don't ask for a decaf, flat white or skinny milk). I bet the waiters could circumnavigate the Sahara, short-black in hand and not spill a drop.
 

Honourable Mentions

The Press Club - We booked a table for dinner here on our first night in Melbourne. Unfortunately, the well-oiled machine that is Virgin Blue Airlines saw fit to sit us on the tarmac for four hours before take-off. Instead of the Press Club our in-flight meal options were a soggy egg sandwich and a bashed-about mars bar! #@!@#@^%%#@ The restaurant receptionist and I bonded over our mutual loathing of Virgin Airlines.

Yu-u - A natty little Japanese place in the centre of the city. It came highly recommended to us and looked hep and happening but we couldn't get a table. Give yourself a good half an hour before your booking to find this place. It's at 137 Flinders Lane but you need to enter via Oliver Lane, look for the sign about the size of your fingernail.

1. Graffiti Voyeurism in the many back lanes of central Melbourne. This laneway was just behind the very popular but sadly very booked-out Movida and Movida Next Door. Better luck next time.

The best online guide to the laneways is here. There is also some good information in The Melbourne Design Guide, the best travel guide to Melbourne for those of us of a craft/design bent.

2. Catch the vintage 78 tram to St Kilda and have a lager in the Espy. 'Nuff said.

 

3. Look up! There is some beautiful old signage around the city centre. Next time I  go to Melbourne, I'm setting myself a little task to do a photo essay as we wander.

 

4. Go to a rally, meet locals up close and personal. We went to the Walk Against Warming rally and had some engaging and strident discussions with people on a range of issues some of which had absolutely nothing to do with climate change. I was having a ball until the Frenchman got a bit fainty and we had to make a fast exit. Just quietly, I think he was gagging for a coffee and had had his fill of discussing the finer points of why chickens' should have access to the Human Rights Charter.

 

5. Wander the back streets and go to any garage sales that you see along the way. This house was a deceased estate in St Kilda due to be demolished. Whilst the sale itself wasn't great, the empty rooms with their pattern on pattern and echoes of former ghosts is still bright in my memory.

 

 

Take it from the Frenchman who has made it his life's work to sample every pain au chocolat between Marseille and Melbourne, Monsieur truffe has Australia's best, (except for that brief and heavenly period when Sydney's Sonoma was employing a gifted French pastry chef).  I should be embarrassed to say  that we had two each but I'm not. I also had a mocha.

I waddled rather than walked out of the shop but it was entirely worth it.

Monsieur truffe, 90 Smith St, Collingwood.

Superlatives are a dime a dozen in the travel industry, "best boutique hotel", "fastest room service", "most centrally located". The Brooklyn thumbs its nose at all such descriptors and resolutely goes about its meandering and idiosyncratic sweet way undeterred.

 

Built in the 1800's and having lived through many incarnations she retains a slight déshabillé air about her in spite of the current grandeur. If this building were a woman she would be a retired burlesque dancer who still pops a pair of fishnets on under her sensible skirt.

Our room was one of two on the top floor, of fabulously generous proportions with a sunroom spilling out from a pair of french doors. If I was to recommend a room to you it would be difficult to choose but for the music lovers, next door had a piano that was positively calling out for some Gershwin.

 

Guests converge in the mornings to the breakfast room with the strains of a medieval choir issuing from a music system in the kitchen. We never stayed for the breakfast, preferring to sample the delights of the many cafes in the neighbourhood but we felt to be amongst kindred spirits as we sipped our morning tea at the large dining table.
 

Then there is the location, not 2 minutes walk from Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, with the temptation of Brunswick Street and Smith Street at each intersection, it would be hard to find a better situated resting place. When you tire of the delights of Melbourne the Brooklyn will welcome you back with open arms, and who knows, you might even get a flash of those fishnets!

The Brooklyn Arts Hotel, 48-50 George St, Fitzroy.

Stay

I stayed at the Windsor Hotel and before you ask me which child I had to auction off to do so, consider, as I did, a mini-break at the beginning or middle of the week. The cost of accommodation is a mere fraction of the what it is towards the weekend if you surf around enough of the internet accommodation sites. My room cost me $170, over the weekend the same room costs upwards of $550 a night (!).

The great thing about Melbourne is that the city is buzzing all the time, so a mid-week break still affords the visitor a great time without the pocket pain.

A cheaper alternative I would thoroughly recommend is 'The Nunnery' in Fitzroy. I used to stay here during my Trotskyist period which was not very proletarian of me. It's a backpackers mecca, civilised, clean and tasteful with, (gasp) leather armchairs and persian carpets on the timber floors. It has now expanded next door with a guesthouse, no doubt catering for former-revolutionaries such as myself with a mortgage and small mouths to feed.

 

Wherever you go in Melbourne and wherever you stay, I hope this little guide is of some use to you in your travels. Have fun, be safe, send a postcard.

x

Shop

It was a good thing I only had a day and a half in Melbourne. Anymore than that and I would have had to sell off some vital organs to pay for the shopping damage. This is a very small list of establishments that I would happily set up house in if it were possible.

Shappere - 191 Smith St, Fitzroy
Vintage clothes and shoes for men and women. Whoever does the buying in this store has a great eye. I snared a beautiful pair of vintage boots at a good price. Nice rack of frocks.

 Zetta Florence - 197 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Paperie of the kind found usually in the backstreets of Venice.

Zakkaya - 52 Johnson St, Fitzroy
Japanese wabi-sabi inspired goodness. I spotted some lovely Shinzi Katoh bags and beautiful wooden toys here.

Moustache - Gertrude St, Fitzroy
CHEAP and gorgeous. I bought natty frocks for the small people and was highly tempted by a pair of chocolate ex-rodeo cullottes but I don't have the yodel to pull them off.

Mr Lincoln - 102 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
Innovative eco-florist, I particularly liked the crushed cardboard boxes serving as coffee tables.

Lost and Found Market - 12 Smith St, Collingwood
Vintage shopping emporium. Seek and ye shall find.

Books for Cooks - 233-235 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
A whole bookstore devoted to the culinary arts, I could have taken up residence quietly in the corner.

Meet Me at Mikes - 63 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Does this establishment really need an introduction? Cuteness, kindness and loveliness all wrapped up in a big scarlet ribbon. Don't visit Melbourne without visiting Mikes.

Dr Follicles Barber Shop - 240 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
This is the place to bring your bloke for a spiff-up prior to a night on the town. An old-fashioned barber shop that takes the edge off with a complimentary glass of Coopers. Need I say more?

Arthur's Circus - 631 Queensberry St, North Melbourne
I was really disappointed to not get a chance to check-out this jewel-box of a vintage shop. When you go say hello from me.

Job Warehouse - 56-58 Bourke St, Melbourne
'Curiouser and curiouser', said Alice, (no doubt referring to this fabric shop). I like the slightly dodgey air about the place. Come for the habadashery if you've got the time and energy to rifle through.

Melbourne is my favourite city in Australia, hands down. It has been since I started going there for Student Union conferences way back when the Prince of Wales still smelt like stale urine and cigarettes and the Espy was, well..pretty much the hipster hive it remains today.

I was prepared to love it again but I didn't expect it to have metamorphosised from the grungy, live music capital with kick-arse coffee into all of that plus urban sophisticate, arts beacon, counter-culture icon and foodie haven. Having recently spent some time in Paris and Tokyo, two of the world's greatest cities, I feel they are in danger of being outclassed by this gorgeous town.

With only a day and a half to spend in Melbourne, I tried to pack as much as I could into every second of it. Here's the low-down:

Eat

Melbourne does this well and breathtakingly cheaply in comparison with other cities. My tips are:

Birdman Eating - 238 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
Do not leave this casual cafe without consuming the freshly made doughnuts with chocolate sauce.

Gill's Diner - Gill's Alley, Melbourne
Slow delicious food, long tables, good wine list, atmosphere. It's all there.

Von Haus - 1a Crossley St, Melbourne
This tiny vintage button of a cafe is great for breakfast or lunch. The hot chocolate will make your hair stand on end.

Pellegrinis - 66 Bourke St, Melbourne
A Melbourne institution - great coffee, good pasta.

Drink not that I imbibed (cough)

Labor in Vain - 197 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
A real pub like the ones you used to go to and have a counter-meal as a little tacker. Plus they make their own beers, smashing.

Hell's Kitchen - 20 Centre Pl, Melbourne
Decor - check. Bevy list - check. Street cred - check.

Paris Cat Jazz Club - 6 Goldie Pl, Melbourne
I'm going back with the Frenchman next time. Think 30's Paris with Arthur Miller

Perseverance Hotel - somewhere on Brunswick St, Fitzroy
I've always loved the name of this hotel. Unfortunately, it's completely derelict but if you put your head up against the brickwork it might just whisper some wicked secrets in your ear.

Up next: sleep and shop.
xx