NOT: Min Lokal, 422 George St, Fitzroy

My friend M is moving into Fitzroy next week and for our Sunday catchup he wanted to try a place around his new hood. Min Lokal is Swedish for ‘my local’ and I thought it’d be the perfect venue for this northside newbie.
Evidently lots of other locals treat Min Lokal as their neighbourhood cafe too, [...]

HOT Chat: Akisa from BeautySwatch

You may remember that at the Nuffnang Christmas party I met Akisa, the brains behind a cool beauty website called BeautySwatch. I liked her idea so much (a huge colour library containing swatches for thousands of lipsticks) I thought you might be interested to hear more about Akisa and her work with BeautySwatch.
Hi Akisa, can you [...]

HOT: The Social Studio, 128 Smith St, Collingwood

Fitzroy/Collingwood seems to be the hotbed of social enterprise businesses in Melbourne (see my review of restaurant Charcoal Lane), and in late 2009 another one opened around the corner from me – The Social Studio.
The Social Studio is a non-profit fashion studio space staffed by approximately 20 young members of Melbourne’s refugee community and overseen [...]

HOT: Launch of MEL: Heat Map

For those of you who may not have noticed yet, there’s a new little button on the top menu of MEL: HOT OR NOT -  MEL: Heat Map.
What’s that, you ask? Well, I have been spending my waking hours putting every review on MEL: HOT OR NOT onto a single map. So that means you [...]

HOT: MoVida Aqui, Level 1, 500 Bourke St, Melbourne

MoVida Aqui is the recently opened, expanded version of Frank Camorra’s fabulous Spanish eatery, MoVida Bar de Tapas. While it’s virtually impossible to get a booking at the original MoVida these days, and there are two timed sittings in the evenings, things at MoVida Aqui are much more relaxed. The space is airy and light [...]

HOT: Outpost, 9 Yarra St, South Yarra

Outpost. How much do I love thee, let me count the ways:

The open kitchen. MasterChef has shown us that cooking can be theatre, and at Outpost you can have a front-row view of the kitchen goings-on. Great entertainment if you’re eating alone and love food (like me).  Oh, and they use Aesop handwash in the [...]

HOT: Three Bags Full, 56 Nicholson St, Abbotsford

Three Bags Full is the latest addition to the industrial chic cafe scene that Melbourne does so well.
It comes with good credentials, as it’s run by the same husband-and-wife team (Sarah Foletta and Nathan Toleman) and their business partners Ben and Diamon, who are behind award-winning cafes APTE and Liar Liar. On the second day [...]

HOT: Cibi, 45 Keele St, Collingwood

I have two friends who are a couple. J is Asian and would like nothing better than a bowl of rice or noodles for breakfast. B is Anglo and in the morning the most substantial thing he can deal with  is eggs and toast.
I think I’ve just found the perfect place for them to have [...]

HOT: Cafe Vue at Heide, Heide Museum of Modern Art, 7 Templestowe Rd, Bulleen

Shannon Bennett has expanded his empire to the suburbs with the establishment of Cafe Vue at the Heide Museum of Modern Art. It’s been open since the end of November and I think it’s still experiencing some teething problems in the kitchen and the service.
We had a 12:30pm booking and had been told that we [...]

HOT: Cafe Rosamond, Rear/191 Smith St, Fitzroy

Cafe Rosamond is a hole-in-the-wall cafe housed in literally two small rooms, and at 10am on a sunny weekday morning I discovered that many of the artsy skinny-jeans crowd of Fitzroy/Collingwood (who are these lucky people? what do they do for a living?) had cosied themselves into the wooden school chairs and small tables.

Looking for [...]