Eight Ways to Bring Your Favourite Restaurant or Bar Experience Home for Your Next Get-Together
Boeuf bourguignon, boozy rum baba, lobster rolls and champagne — have the best of these local eateries delivered to your door.
Eight Ways to Bring Your Favourite Restaurant or Bar Experience Home for Your Next Get-Together
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Boeuf bourguignon, boozy rum baba, lobster rolls and champagne — have the best of these local eateries delivered to your door.
Melburnians can now dine in at restaurants, cafes and pubs — but with restrictions in place around what you can and can't do when you get there, you may prefer to bring the experience home. If you're enjoying the comfort of your own space, with the freedom to cosy up to your loved ones, or to invite a bunch of friends over for a socially responsible dinner, you can still order from a number of excellent Melbourne bars and eateries that are happy to bring restaurant quality dining to you, or bottled cocktails if that's more your vibe. In partnership with Belvedere, we've found eight venues delivering quality meals and cocktails (as well as other celebratory drinks) so you can level up your next night in, and stay nice and cosy indoors.
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It’s been months since we’ve stepped foot into a sticky-floored nightclub to march our way to the dancefloor and declare that this truly is our song. Instead, we’ve been live-streaming all our nostalgic DJ sets and shaking up cocktails with whatever’s left in the pantry. Now, thanks to nightclub Ms Collins, we can take that at-home rave to the next level with a seriously baller laser-etched bottle of vodka that lights up (it has LEDs in the base of the bottle). The multi-bar establishment is offering magnums of Belvedere Bespoke Silver Sabre for $226 — so one for a big at-home celebration. When you’ve ordered your bottle, it takes around a week to be delivered. Time it with one of the venue’s live-streamed sets from R&B DJs Bobby Love and ESG, and it’ll feel like a real throwback to pre-COVID 19 days.
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If you were planning a celebratory feed with sky-high views this winter, perhaps you had a trip to Eureka 89 in mind? While you may not have panoramic vistas at home, what you do have is the luxury of recreating that VIP experience in private — and, thanks to Executive Chef Renee Martillano, you can dine at home in style. From Wednesday to Saturday, you can take advantage of Eureka 89 at Home — a rotating menu of the restaurant’s popular dishes over the years, prepared and ready to heat and serve in your kitchen. Warm your bones with apple and celeriac soup, osso bucco or a veggie take on the classic shepherd’s pie. Or, if the idea of heating up Martillano’s dishes is too daunting, opt for the freshly cooked menu, delivered hot to your door, from Friday to Sunday. To cap it off, add in a couple of cosmos (delivered in cute screw-top jars).
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Since 1986, France-Soir has been serving timeless French classics in its packed Toorak Road brasserie. The intimate atmosphere of the 30-year-old restaurant is hard to replicate, but with the help of some imaginative lighting and À bout de souffle screening in the background, we think you could make owner Jean-Paul Prunetti proud. The French native has turned to home delivery and takeaway during lockdown, which means you could be kicking the night off with onion soup or escargots, before slicing into grass-fed rib eye steaks sourced from O’Connor farms in Gippsland. There’s also warming boeuf bourguignon, boozy rum baba for dessert, and a selection of French cheeses. Celebrating? Add a bottle of Ruinart Brut champagne to your order for $94. Minimum delivery is $80 and you can order any day of the week.
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Executive Chef Pierre Khodja’s Pinchy’s-at-Home menu brings you all the fun and flavour of dining at the neon-pink temple of lobster rolls and champagne, but without having to venture out into the cold to get it. Seafood reigns supreme here, so whether you’re ordering for pickup or home delivery, make sure you add Pinchy’s signature lobster rolls into the mix — each one is loaded with buttery lobster sourced from Alaska and Maine. Then there’s the belly warming mussel chowder, made with steamed spring bay mussels, tarragon, chive and lemon. The fisherman’s stew is a hot broth of mixed seafood, smoked peppers, harissa and saffron rice. There’s a vegetarian three-cheese macaroni in a light bechamel sauce, too. Invite your mates over for a wintry feast from 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday, and chuck in a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne to pair with your shellfish.
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Melbourne restaurateur Joe Mammone opened up South Yarra’s Bar Carolina three years ago, and locals usually flock here for comforting rabbit ragu or traditional lasagne dishes. Mammone recently united his five venues (Marameo, Il Bacaro, Cantina Carolina, Tetto di Carolina and Bar Carolina) under one name — Carolina Group — so that Melburnians can order the best of the trusted franchise to eat at home. Order in venue favourites like Il Bacaro’s spaghettini with Moreton Bay bugs, or Marameo’s cavatelli with pork sausage and broccoli, and Bar Carolina’s wild barramundi baked in a herb-salted crust. Then follow it up with a grand finale of desserts: agave nectar cheesecake with crème fraiche, blueberry, pop rocks and fairy floss (pictured), or the crowd-pleasing five layer tiramisu. If you’re dining with a group, add in a 500-millilitre bottle of pre-batched negroni, martini or lavender spritz. While you’re browsing, check out the range of pantry-ready pasta dishes and the iso boredom-busting 120-piece puzzles. There’s even one of the cheesecake.
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Windsor’s Galah is where you go to drink excellent cocktails made with native Australian ingredients and minimal gimmickry, and the same is true when you visit Galah’s downstairs bottle shop. During lockdown, the bottle-o has been delivering negronis, Vegemite espressos and old-fashioneds via Deliveroo and Uber Eats, and you can also pick up the pocket-sized bottles in person. Head bartender Gee Shanmugam’s latest playful concoction is the Bella Roselle (pictured), featuring Belvedere Pure and davidson’s plum, which is known for its sour flavour and juicy purple flesh. The result is a bittersweet aperitif that’ll set the right tone for your fancy night at home.
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Another Windor fave, Japanese eatery Mr Miyagi, is currently closed for dine-in customers, but in a feat of lockdown ingenuity it’s using the opportunity to team up with other restaurants and cafes across the city for what it’s calling ‘One Night Stand’. So far, ONS has come to Good Times Milk Bar, Axil Coffee Roasters and Tinker Northcote among other sites, and the best way to stay in the loop with where’s next is to follow Mr M on Instagram. When the next location is announced, hop onto the website to place your order for some of its longstanding favourites like the salmon nori tacos, which pairs well with the venue’s champagne selection. Orders are collected from the host venue and you get to pick your preferred pick-up time, but don’t sleep on placing your order, as, so far, each ONS has sold out in advance. The good news is, Mr Miyagi is hoping to run these events well into the future, even when restaurants are welcoming diners once again.
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Restaurateurs Frank Ciorciari and Gian Chiaravalle keep things Italo-French at this intimate Malvern East wine bar, and right now you can bring the experience of dining in the classy establishment back to yours. Instead of jostling for space at the bar for a bowl of spaghetti and a bottle of southern Italian red, you can order the bar’s comforting dishes to your home. There’s baked rigatoni with cherry tomato sugo, green peas, parmesan, bocconcini cheese and breadcrumbs; slow-braised beef cheek risotto; Pugliese orecchiette with pork sausage, broccoli, chilli and garlic; and that classic tiramisu for something sweet. Delivery is currently available Wednesday to Saturday, and you can pick up or drive by on any day of the week. Visiting the venue? Pick up a bottle of Ruinart Blanc de Blanc while you’re there.
Top image: France-Soir by Brook James.
