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It’s 3am on Saturday morning in Windsor. You’ve just spent the night doing awful dance moves at Revs or Poof Doof and you’re craving something fried and unhealthy and utterly delicious. Where do you go?

Loaded fries with mac ‘n’ cheese, all-you-can-eat wings and pecan pie—oh my! Hailing from LA-based Bludso’s BBQ (said to be the best BBQ outside of Texas), San Antone is dishing out some of the most drool-worthy cheat meals in Melbourne.

In a sleepy Essendon high street, there’s a little cafe doing—hands down—one of the best breakfasts we’ve eaten this year. In fact we’re fighting an urge not to jump in the car right now, go back and order another plate-full.

It’s the one burger store in Melbourne where you can walk up to the counter, order a BJ, and not get slapped. Welcome to That Burger Joint, a politically incorrect St Kilda burger bar that’s been pumping since 2015.

Finding a spray tan you can actually trust is like The Holy Grail. Sometimes you hear whispers of a place that’s a ‘sure thing’, some underground urban legend where they DON’T turn you into an oompa loompa two days before your cousin’s wedding. But actually finding one is tricky. It’s always some friend of a friend’s sister’s mate’s neighbour who discovered tanning Narnia. Never you.

Part yoga, part cafe, part retail space, part meditation studio. The Beatt in Armadale sure does wear a lot of hats.

Nosh (v): to eat enthusiastically. That about sums it up at Nosh, Melbourne’s new wellness cafe and poke bar.

Funny how quickly things change in Melbourne. It was only a couple of years ago that Toko opened its izakaya-style doors on Greville St. Contemporary, sophisticated and delicious. It was a local favourite for a long time.

It’s hard to know where Melbourne’s modern-day burger obsession started, but if you follow the brioche breadcrumbs back in time, chances are good you’ll end up here. At the Dandenong Pavilion, one of Melbourne’s true OG burger joints.

One of the little-known downsides to the whole monogram process is the waiting around while the thing gets done. All that monogram fatigue. Who’s got the stamina, right?

Bayswater’s new Wonderland extravaganza has captured the eyes (and Insta feeds) of many eager to embrace their inner Mad Hatter. With burgers by the names of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, The Hatter & The Hare has “Eat Me” written all over it. 

The Mr Burger empire has grown steadily over the last few years. From a food truck fleet to bricks and mortar stores. Even a competition where they offered someone a lifetime of free stacks...if they changed their last name to Burger (anyone whose surname was already Burger was, sadly, ineligible).

Armadale’s bustling High St has a new resident, and it’s looking classy AF. Meet The New Trend, an iconic Canadian multi-brand fashion retailer that started up back in 1992.

If you haven’t tried a steak sanga from Empire Steak in the CBD, you haven’t live in any meaningful way. These things are officially ridiculous. Juicy 125g lean porterhouse steak, cooked medium, sandwiched between lightly toasted white bread, and paired with onion jam and butter lettuce. That’s your classic model, but the guys at Empire have expanded the range since setting up shop in Little Collins St.

Before anyone ever uttered the phrase ‘hidden Melbourne laneway gem’, there was Punch Lane, a cosy restaurant and wine bar that’s been going steady since 1995. Well now Punch Lane has a sister venue, down in the basement, Melbourne’s new late-night wine and raclette hotspot—Juliet.

Sneaker-heads, listen up, because Sneakerboy just opened its latest concept store in Chadstone, and it’s looking absolutely ridiculous. If Turtle from Entourage had dreams, they would look something like this: a brushed-concrete Trainer Temple, big flat screens hanging from the ceiling, decked out in cutting-edge street footwear.

It’s a hell of a concept when you get it down on paper. A boozy Footscray bakery, jaffle bar and coffee house, with cocktails running till 1am. We’re struggling to think of anywhere else in Melbourne doing something even comparable. You’ll get it as soon as you push through the big glass doors: Bad Love Club is one of a kind.

If you’ve been to Tokyo, chances are good you’ve visited the cramped alleys around Golden Gai, the city’s famous shanty-town bar district. It’s known for tiny yokocho alley bars: minuscule drinking dens with a seating capacity you could count on one hand. Just a wooden bar, three or five stools, and some of the best whisky in the world. No biggie.

Old-school Melburnians will probably remember The Cliveden Room on Wellington St. It was a place for the A-Listers—your Barry Humphries, Bert Newtons and Jeff Kennetts—an exclusive fine dining restaurant with an even more exclusive clientele.

Sloane Ranger’s industrial aesthetic feels kind of appropriate for Cremorne. A forgotten warehouse suburb, where Melbourne keeps its ad agencies, auto garages, mysterious yet trendy offices and architecture firms.

West Melbourne is dotted with gems like this. Massive crumbling Art Deco buildings from the 1920s, peeling, sun bleached, forgotten. They usually stay that way for decades, slowly crumbling, until a canny developer converts them into modern, industrial apartments, which is pretty much what happened to The Apollo on Hawke St.

If you Google “Bhang”, you find it’s the name for the cannabis flower—a way to get high in India and Nepal. But at Brunswick’s newest Indian restaurant, the only high you’ll experience is a good-food one.

There’s something happening on Chapel St. Gentrification seems to be trickling south from the Yarra, pouring into Windsor and Prahran like the slow extraction of a good espresso martini. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means old stalwart venues (like Oriental Teahouse) are getting some overdue revamps, restyling themselves as contemporary cocktail destinations. More 2017 than 2007.

What do we want from a good wine bar?

Melburnians, we’ve found the hottest wellness studio you need to rewind, relax and rejuvenate after a hard week (or 20-something years, if we’re being honest here). Armadale’s newest arrival—ODOS—is a specialised infrared sauna and oxygen therapy studio with treatments that sooth your body using the latest technology in wellness and health.

She’s not a household name in Melbourne (yet), but Ms Vy is one of Vietnam’s most recognised and respected restaurateurs, famed for her Morning Glory restaurant in the beating heart of Hoi An. Now she’s hitting the big smoke with her latest venture: an authentic Vietnamese restaurant in the backstreets of Windsor.

Foodies, this is no ordinary food truck. Dishing out the finest modern Latino street food in the ‘burbs of Melbourne, you can expect a fiesta of sounds and flavours from La Revolucion.

You’ll probably smell Atypic before you see it. The dark scent of homemade couverture wafts through the passages of South Melbourne Market. Approximate smell radius: 15 metres. You’ll find your nose twitching like a compass needle, swinging to point due chocolate.

Difficult to find, even with Google Maps in your pocket, St. Burgs is tucked inside an apartment complex in Maribyrnong. It’s probably best just to drive up, close your eyes, and follow the scent of perfectly cooked patties.

Healthy fast food sounds like a bit of an oxymoron. Kind of like an 'addictive salad'. But for Ben's Supernatural, South Yarra's new nutrition-based eatery, it's a way of life.

You couldn’t pick a more Melbourne spot. The southern end of Smith St, just near the Gertrude St intersection, with the sun shining, coffee brewing, and the 86 groaning as it heaves round the corner. That’s the home of Collingwood’s newest Nepalese-themed brunch bar, Proud Sprout.

Burgers and cocktails for lunch? It’s par for the course at Hightail, the CBD’s latest uber-cool concept bar.

We haven’t been this excited about a new launch in years. Dessert queen Christy Tania’s boutique ice-creamery is open for business, and the child inside us is weeping hysterically.

Now that we’re all grown up (for the most part), we’re all looking for ways to workout that aren’t necessarily traditional, aka boring or difficult. Cue Bounce Inc. It’s like the creators of Bounce were listening to our thoughts and answered our prayers, because if you’re looking for a way to get that heart rate up without having to buy a gym membership, continue reading.

There’s something vaguely spacey about Light Years, the new Camberwell caff from Simon Ward, owner of Fitzroy’s (dearly departed) Hammer & Tong. It might be the way the morning light blasts in through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, like the arrival scene from Spielberg’s Close Encounters. It might be the interior styling: a Southside mash of brushed concrete and ovoid golden curves, arcing through the ceiling like some ancient solar map.

Foodies who hate fitness: this is one workout you’re actually going to enjoy. S3 has recently opened a stunning basement studio in the heart of Melbourne, specialising in low-impact, high-energy barre classes.

It feels like Melbourne’s Indian scene is getting a high-concept shake up. Out with the Butter Chicken, in with the crispy skinned salmon, confit tomatoes and mustard-infused coconut sauce. It’s probably long overdue. Don’t get us wrong—there’ll always be times that call for a plate-sized garlic naan—but it’s cool to see chefs pushing the curry envelope a little.

For vino-lovers Jeremy and Suzy Honisett, a good bottle of plonk shouldn’t be a question of money.

If you haven’t heard of The Food Repository, prepare to have your world rocked very gently. It’s a small-batch food market, created by owner-operator Joni Marcelis, and it’s just opened its first bricks and mortar store in Fitzroy.

There is no platform 7 at Glen Waverley station, which lends Platform 7 (Glen Waverley’s newest brunch bar, just across the street) a nice ‘Platform 9 and 3/4’ type vibe.

Want to save money off your final bill at Supernormal Canteen? Feast your eyes on Urban Feast, the ultimate card for foodies. For just $100 you'll get $500 worth of value and will see you heading to some of the finest eating establishments in town. Find out more about Urban Feast here.

When the menu features a pink fairy floss-topped martini (it comes in original or vanilla), a banana espresso martini (coffee, vodka, banana foam and banana chips) and a salted caramel mocha martini complete with toasted marshmallows, you know you’re between a rock and a hard place. Better order the lot?

Every once in a while you stumble on a suburban cafe that’s just special. You can usually tell by the amount of time it takes you to text a friend something like ‘OMG we’re coming back here omnomnom’. At Buenos Dias, we were sending that text within about two minutes flat.     

Aburi sushi, if you didn’t know, is when the chef carefully crafts a delicate jewel of perfect, blushing sashimi…then blasts it with a superheated flame thrower. The blue flames sear one side of the sushi, leaving the underside raw. What you get is the best of both worlds—the oily meatiness of cooked salmon, tuna or kingfish, plus the palate-cleansing satisfaction of tender raw fish.

The humble egg. You can fry it, bake it, boil it, poach it, scramble it...throw it at houses that displease you. Few foods come so perfectly packaged for their culinary destiny, apart from, perhaps, the banana.

There are some things Melbourne will never get sick of, including overpriced homewares, sport and Jane Bunn’s relentlessly sunny demeanour. Tacos are also on that list. There seems to be no upper limit for the amount of tacos Melbourne is happy to consume in any given week. The city has taken Mexican cuisine to its fluttering heart in the same way it did Italian espresso and Greek fish and chip shops.

Dolce House is the kind of place that makes your dentist huddle under the stairs and weep. A frosted sugar temple, dedicated to the gods of all things sweet and moreish. One minute you’re cruising the sleepy backstreets of McKinnon, the next you’re sitting at a table stuffing house-made brownies and artisan gelato into our gob.

Bloody YES. This is what we’re talking about. A Peruvian charcoal chicken bar from the guys behind Pastuso and San Telmo, kitted out with empanadas, house-made chicken salt and—hold your breath—dulce de leche soft serve.

The Silverlake Social, a nod to the LA suburb that shares its name, is appropriately fitted out like a glorified West Coast American bar. Complete with a winding bar top, cosy stools, television (permanently displaying US sports) and neon lights—it's authentically American and yet somehow feels more Melbourne than most spots along Chapel Street.

A long-running bayside institution, Coffee Traders has built its rep on two things: bloody good coffee, and sincere, friendly service. The first caffeine addicts usually rock up at 6am (some even help unpack the furniture, just to get their coffee faster). On weekends, there’s a line out the door.

Newmarket Hotel was always going to be architecturally eclectic. The group behind Middle Park Hotel, Imperial Hotel and The Duke (so yes, they know what they’re doing when it comes to pubs) have revamped St Kilda’s favourite local.

Cute name, right? It’s a reference to a kid’s book: Clever Polly And The Stupid Wolf. A fable which, for Lou Chalmer and her brother Rohan, represented the battle between small, independent winemakers and the huge chain brands that squeeze them out. Clever Polly’s was the result: a warm little West Melbourne wine bar. Moody, chic and intimate.

You won’t need much more than a dish and a spoon to enjoy yourself at Camberwell’s best hidden gem. An established local favourite, Dish & Spoon’s obvious focus on charming, knowledgeable service keeps brunch-lovers coming from Melbourne’s far and wide suburbs.

Perched above Melbourne’s most achingly cool laneway (Centre Place), Lustre Bar is a bit of a CBD institution. One of those venues that lives in the back pocket of your brain, laid-back and snug, just waiting for you to climb the stairs and give it another go.

The humble piece of toast. It’s not usually the part of breakfast that gets us frothing, although Vegemite and a good inch of salted butter on crusty sourdough is still probably 15% more fun than anything cooked up by Walter White in a lab.

It’s hard to find a place where both vegans and carnivores would be chuffed to spend a Saturday night (at least until Meatmother goes crazy and branches out into tofu steaks). But, as anyone who lives at the top end of Nicholson St knows, A Fan’s Notes manages to straddle the meat-veggie divide like an absolute champ.

Oriental Teahouse has been a Chapel St staple for nearly 14 years. As much a part of the furniture as The Jam Factory’s familiar red brick façade, or a late-night Lamb On Chapel garlic kebab. But this year it’s undergone a significant revamp, styling itself as a premier Shanghai-style dumpling and teahouse. An old dog with a few new tricks.

Hold on to your chopsticks, Melbourne. An NYC-style Japanese concept restaurant just opened on Chapel St...and its specialty is sushi pizza.

As a wise Richmond local once said, “You can never have too many pubs.” Melbourne’s inner east isn’t short of a boozer or two, but they tend to be focused on frothies from the tap, not contemporary bistro dining. Union House has been designed to plug that market gap.

As humans, we have all of the modern convenience of the supermarket at just a short walk or drive away, but since the dawn of time, our humble pets have struggled to find the same convenience of a grocery store that serves their particular needs. Well, that’s all changed with The Pet Grocer opening up a permanent shop in South Melbourne.