Carnation Canteen

This venue is included in Good Food’s 100 Essential Restaurants list.

Owner-chef Audrey Shaw is a former architect, and her design sensibility lingers in every detail here: the pink marble-topped bar, handmade tables, fresh flowers that contrast beautifully with the cracked paintwork.

Farmers, fishers and makers are credited on the back of the handwritten menu, and staff speak about them with genuine enthusiasm – so too the low-intervention producers who populate the wine list. Cubes of raw eye fillet are tumbled over soft Grecian cheese and bread rubbed with purple garlic: gloriously messy, keenly balanced. Baby snapper, charcoal-grilled and finished with olive oil and lemon, is measured yet thrilling.

Lamb backstrap lands with tomato sugo, reduced over many hours, alongside sweet negi leeks in cumin-spiked yoghurt: rustic cooking with real finesse. Flan Parisien veers gently towards Greece, glazed with honey and sesame and resting on filo pastry. Done this well, simplicity never feels too simple.

Good to know: The walk-in courtyard is heated through the colder months.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

Last visited: April 2026

More:

• Fitzroy
• Carnation Canteen
• Melbourne
• European
• Accepts bookings
• Licensed
• Date night
• Outdoor dining
• Vegetarian-friendly
• Gluten-free options
• Wheelchair access
• Pet-friendly
• Long lunch
• Restaurant
• Reviews
• Good Food Guide
• 100 Essential Restaurants
• Katie McCormack Young Service Talent Award
• Critics’ Pick