Overview
Melburnians have hotly anticipated visiting the very first Il Mercato Centrale outside Italy ever since the CBD site was first announced in 2022. At that time, it was expected to launch late the same year, but the highly ambitious venture encountered a heap of issues that pushed the opening back a couple of years.
But all those woes are now in the past, as the team is officially opening the 546 Collins Street site at 4pm on Thursday, September 19.
First off, the 3500-square-metre space, spread across three stories, truly is enormous. The first floor will have a market feel but with more flash, fun and tech. Each of the vendors will be slinging their own specialty goods, with none competing with the other.
Mercato Centrale Milan
There'll be a bakery, patisserie, handmade pasta bar, pizza joint, cheese maker, butcher and seafood stall, to name a few. Here, you can get fresh produce to take away or order it to be cooked up right in front of you. That means that you can buy a steak to eat at home or ask them to pop it on the grill while you start on some wine that you ordered from the bar right in the centre of the ground floor. Want to make it a surf and turf? Order some grilled calamari from the seafood stall next door and create your own feast.
Conveniently, you'll be able to order from any and all vendors all in one transaction by using a QR code — or even pre-order from your office to pick up when it's ready. It going to be one of the easiest Melbourne food halls to order from.
Then, on the second floor of Melbourne's Il Mercato Centrale, you'll find a fine-dining restaurant, cocktail bar, pasta restaurant (all made by hand), pizzeria, gelateria, wine bar, a gin and vodka distillery, and live music stage. We told you, it's huge. Up here, you'll even be able to order some of the food from downstairs to be delivered to you.
Say you're sipping on a negroni at the bar upstairs and get a bit hungry. All you've got to do is order a cheeseboard and perhaps some slices of pizza on your phone, and the team will bring it up to you. If it all works out how the crew wants it to, it will be a huge feat of tech and service ingenuity.
The top floor of Il Mercato Centrale will then be dedicated to private events and masterclasses, where each of the vendors will run workshops on their particular trades each month.
There will even be a big outdoor seating area right on Collins Street, something that was not easy for the Il Mercato Centrale team to secure. Taking Concrete Playground on a tour of the site, General Manager Gary Patikkis couldn't share the details about the outside area, but he noted that it is set to be unlike any other street-level drinking and dining space in the CBD.
Il Mercato Centrale in Turin
The venue will have a 3am liquor license (another rarity for new venues in Melbourne) and be open from 7am–midnight every day of the week.
Patikkis commented, "We are beyond delighted by how the space is coming to life and are excited to share the authentic essence of il Mercato Centrale with Australia this September.
"Our venue will not only bring a cultural experience never-before seen in Melbourne, it will celebrate the rich tradition of Italian cuisine and hospitality through our dedicated food and beverage artisans.
"We look forward to unveiling il Mercato Centrale and becoming a cherished cornerstone of Melbourne's vibrant food and hospitality scene."
Il Mercato Centrale Rome
Il Mercato Central Melbourne will open at 4pm on Thursday, September 19, and will be found at 546 Collins Street, Melbourne. The Italian market and food hub will be open every day from 7am–midnight. For more details, you can visit the venue's website.