The gastronomic delights of Melbourne

We've taken Melbourne's Cup. We might as well see what else the capital of Victoria has to offer, writes EWAN McDONALD.

Happy accident, really. The plan was to spend a few days in Melbourne, then pick up a rental car and tour around the wine country. On the morning we were due to pick up the car we found we'd left the driver's licence at home. So we stayed in the city all week, got tram passses and toured around the wine glasses instead.

By another happy accident our stay coincided with publication of the annual Age Good Food Guide, the indispensable handbook to the best restaurants and cafes in Melbourne and Victoria. Unfortunately it didn't come out until the Tuesday, and like most tourists in a strange city we'd made a couple of mistakes by then. But as one of Melbourne's favourite daughters, the cook, restaurateur and writer Stephanie Alexander, says: "I am always optimistic that the next meal will be wonderful."

So, it was the best of food, it was the worst of food. But Melbourne retains its reputation as the best foodie city Down Under, largely because of its many immigrant communities - some, like the Italians and Greeks, arriving after the Second World War; others, like the South-east Asian and Middle Eastern settlers, refugees of more recent conflicts - and the state's marvellous produce, seen at its best every morning at one of the city's major attractions, the Queen Victoria Market.

Like all major cities, it's best to be aware of the tourist traps. There are some places to eat and some not to. Here's a rough guide to the city's best and best-avoided:

In Chinatown, the alley of Little Bourke St in the central city, hucksters stand in the doorways of many Chinese restaurants tempting and teasing tourists to come inside. That's the first clue: if someone asks you in, don't go. We should have known that. We've visited enough cities and eaten enough bad meals to know that. But we'd left Auckland at 3.30 am, it was around 10 pm our time.

The second mistake was to accept a table upstairs, in a windowless room, in a corner. Always insist on a table downstairs, preferably near a window, especially on a warm Melbourne night.

This is not to say that all Chinatown's dining rooms are greasy spoon joints - the city's top restaurant is here, and it's Chinese - but many are tourist traps and you may regret the experience for as long as it takes to find an open-all-hours store where you can buy Eno's.

Recommendations: Flower Drum, in Market Lane off Little Bourke St, is a city institution that has twice been the Good Food Guide's No 1 in recent years. Be prepared to spend about $A120 for two, plus drinks, for Gilbert Lau's fine Cantonese cuisine. Others highly rated include Bamboo House, Chine on Paramount, Empress of China, Fortuna Village, Kum Den, Mask of China and Shark Fin Inn, many offering regional food styles that you won't find in this country. Look, too, for other ethnic cuisines in the street, such as the Greek Kri Kri and Japanese Kuni's.

If Auckland is the City of Sails, Melbourne is the City of Cakes, and the time and place to drool is on a Sunday morning in Acland St, in the seaside suburb of St Kilda. Window upon window, tray upon tray, a street of black forest, lemon slice, sticky tortes, gateaux oozing cream. Yes, there are lamingtons.

Many visitors will be tempted to stroll the craft market that runs along the beachfront esplanade and go looking for brunch. If you're lucky - or early - you may find a space in the maze of tiny rooms called Wall Two 80, formerly a kosher butchery in nearby Carlisle St, considered the city's hottest cafe; the other place to bully your way into is 189. As you feel the caffeine hit or the sugar rush you may wonder why Mission Bay or Devonport doesn't have this buzz.

One traveller's guidebook sarcastically suggests that the best advice to tourists thinking about eating in the Little Italy of Lygon St is: don't. We managed that by staying on the tram too long and ending up several suburbs north of this lively strip, which is just off the rails, so to speak. And certainly the other piece of advice would be to apply that first rule from the Chinatown section: don't be sweet-talked into anything.

You can get a good Italian meal in Lygon St, but it's a lottery. There may be more Juventus shirts here than anywhere else in the sprawling metropolis but the two best eateries on the boulevard are Lemongrass, the best Thai in town, and Jimmy Watson's, a wonderful wine bar-restaurant that offers modern British food (and a stunning wine list). Go for coffee and a sidewalk seat for the passe-ggiata, the nightly promenade of the look-at-me crowd.

Down by the riverside is Southgate, built to celebrate Melbourne's waterfront, the Yarra River. It has several multi-storey blocks of shopping malls, many restaurants and bars, spilling on to riverside promenades and jetties for cruise boats facing the spectacular city skyline. You'd be unlucky to get a bad meal here but you may pay quite a bit for an ordinary one and you may be bewildered by the choice.

Some suggestions: Akvavit bills itself as a "vodka bar and restaurant;" it's right on the promenade, go for a seat outdoors and don't expect the meal of a lifetime (Sweden hasn't contributed much to great menus of the world); Blake's, also on the ground, is modern, reliable but expensive; Cecconi's has stunning design, is mid-priced, Italian; Koko, serene, Japanese; mecca, the mezze bar, is regarded as one of Melbourne's great lunch spots; the Red Emperor is gnawing at the Flower Drum's chopsticks while Silks is more flash than anything else; Scusa Mi is as expensive but well crafted as any other Italian designer product; and Walter's Wine Bar, the place to be seen before or after theatre at the adjacent Victorian Arts Centre, offers an encyclopaedic wine list and refined bar food.

PICK SIX

Half a dozen of the best meals Melbourne has to offer ...

pomme, 37 Toorak Rd, South Yarra Zen-sational ... and that goes for the minimalist-chic decor and the French-influenced, new-wave British food. The name is a pun (the logo's an apple and the partners are English): Chris Young, the urbane, often-quoted, superstar maitre d' and chef Jeremy Strode. The menu changes daily, specialises in game and vegetarian delicacies and encourages diners to expect the unexpected. Pay $A90 for two - the cheapest ticket to foodie heaven you'll buy.

France-Soir, 11 Toorak Rd, South Yarra The noise, the bustle, the waiters in black waistcoats and white aprons arguing in French , the long and narrow sepia room with tables jammed together, covered in white paper ... this is the bistro that you always dreamed of finding in Paris. It is always packed, the wine list is the size of a small encyclopaedia (and voted the best in Australia) and the menu is the size and image of a small newspaper, because it takes its name from the famous evening broadsheet. The food is bistro staples of steaks, cutlets, daubes, creamy sauces, all served with frites, a green salad or minimal vegetables; the creme brulee is one of God's gifts to the world. Expect to pay about $A70 for two.

Il Bacaro, 168-170 Little Collins St, City Everyone wears Armani, Versace, Gucci; I was wearing Canterbury. This favourite of the business lunch and seductive dinner is, as someone else put it, "as sleek as an Italian Formula One car, as sultry as Sophia Loren, and as dark and moody as the Venetian bacari (bars) on which it is modelled." Consistently awarded during its four years in an upmarket city lane, the food is straightforward Italian: the pasta and risotto remarkable. Drink Italian, too, and you'll pay around $A80 for two.

Grossi Florentino, 80 Bourke St, City La prima donna ... the grand dame of Melbourne's restaurants. Prime ministers, captains of industry, families whose farms are the size of small European nations have met in this stiff, formal dining-room for 70 years. Try to book a place in the Mural Room, darkly panelled and carved, walls frescoed like some Medici palazzo in that other Florence. The traditional food can be stiff and formal but you're here for the experience. $A120 for two.

Caffe e Cucina, 581 Chapel St, South Yarra Strut off the busy street of boutiques and into the dark, bustling, garlic-imbued room somewhere in Rome or Milan. Toss a "buongiorno, signor" or scatter "grazie" and "prego" to the white-coated waiter flicking the white paper over the linen tablecloth, presenting olive oil and bread like the host at mass. Classic Italian; risotto to die for; $A55 for two.

Richmond Hill Cafe & Larder, 48-50 Bridge Rd, Richmond Australia's premier foodie - chef, restaurateur, writer, TV host - Stephanie Alexander, and cheese authority Will Studd, are hosts to this cafe, fromagerie, bookstore, foodstore on the edge of the city's factory-shop alley. Open from breakfast, where crowds spill into the road and face imminent danger of passing trams obliterating their entrees, it embodies the warmth and spirit of Alexander, translated through the finest produce from Australia and beyond into memorable flavours, meals and memories.