Melbourne Eats on a Budget: Where to Get a Meal
Where to eat in Melbourne without overpaying
Melbourne’s food scene runs from $2 dim sims in Chinatown to $150-a-head tasting menus in the CBD, and the gap between them is mostly location and occasion, not quality. Here’s where the good, reasonably priced food actually is.
Chinatown: the oldest in the Western world, and still the cheapest yum cha
Little Bourke Street’s Chinatown is the oldest continuously running Chinatown in the Western world, and yum cha here is a reliable way to eat well without spending much: expect roughly $20-30 a head for a full sitting. While you’re there, try a dim sim, a Melbourne-invented fried or steamed snack from the 1940s - it looks like Cantonese dim sum but isn’t the same dish, whatever the name suggests. Dim sims run $2-4 each from Chinatown bakeries and takeaways.
The pub parma: Melbourne’s actual national dish
A pub parma (chicken parmigiana) is the classic budget pub meal city-wide, typically $18-25 with a side and a beer at most suburban pubs. It’s the single most reliable cheap dinner if you’re not sure what else to order.
Lygon Street: the birthplace of Australia’s espresso culture
Carlton’s Lygon Street is credited as the birthplace of Australia’s espresso culture, and Pellegrini’s, running since 1954, is the historic espresso bar to try it in - a coffee here costs about the same $4-5 as anywhere else in the city, which is part of the point. The street itself is dense with casual Italian restaurants for a $20-30 pasta dinner.
Lonsdale Street’s Greek precinct
The Lonsdale Street precinct has the largest Greek population of any city outside Greece, and souvlaki here runs $12-18 for a full plate, one of the better-value hot lunches in the CBD.
Richmond’s Vietnamese strip
Victoria Street in Richmond, Melbourne’s “Little Saigon,” is a genuinely cheap dinner option most nights of the week - a bowl of pho typically runs $12-18, a few dollars less than the same dish closer to the CBD.
Queen Victoria Market’s deli and produce halls
Running on the same site since 1878, Queen Victoria Market is free to browse and one of the cheapest ways to put together a lunch: bread, cheese and deli meats from the halls cost a fraction of a sit-down meal, and there’s nowhere to sit down that isn’t free either.
What a full day of eating costs
| Meal | Pick | Cost (AUD) |
|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | Queen Victoria Market deli picnic | $10-15 |
| Lunch | Souvlaki on Lonsdale Street or pho in Richmond | $12-18 |
| Dinner (casual) | Pub parma | $18-25 |
| Dinner (splurge) | Lygon Street Italian or a CBD tasting menu | $40-150+ |
Prices are volatile, so treat these as a starting point rather than a quote - check current menus before you commit to a splurge.
For the full city budget breakdown, including transport and lodging alongside food, see the main Melbourne guide ; the things-to-do guide pairs well since Chinatown and Lygon Street sit right next to the day’s main sights.
Eat Chinatown yum cha at lunch rather than dinner. It’s the same menu for less, and the lunch sitting doesn’t need a reservation the way a Friday dinner service often does.