Coming Soon: 11 Melbourne Restaurants and Bakeries To Watch Out for in 2025

A week in and it’s already been a big year for Melbourne restaurants, with car-park favourite Soi 38 moving and venues launching specials around the tennis.

From Tom Sarafian’s highly anticipated new restaurant Zareh to market-stand favourite Masses Bagels’ first bricks-and-mortar spot to a dine-in Baker Bleu, here are 11 soon-to-open venues to watch out for this year.

Zareh

Tom Sarafian’s Collingwood spot is one of the year’s most anticipated openings. Having not cooked full-time in a kitchen since Bar Saracen closed in 2021, Sarafian’s remained a staple of the Melbourne dining world through countless pop-ups and his adored hummus, toum and harissa brand, Sarafian.

Zareh, named for Sarafian’s paternal grandfather (a chef), will be a day-to-night venue serving Sarafian’s signature hummus topped with king prawn and spanner crab sauce, and other dishes largely inspired by the chef’s Egyptian and Armenian heritage. A retail section featuring a range of teas, different za’atar blends, pomegranate molasses and pickled and fermented vegetables imported from Lebanon, will also be a big part of the venue.

368 Smith Street Collingwood
Expected opening: March

Masses Bagels,

Melbourne’s most talked about market stand, is soon to be one of Melbourne’s most talked about bakeries when founders and partners Jack Muir-Rigby and Carmen Newton open their bricks-and-mortar shop in Collingwood.

The bagels themselves are what set Masses apart from other spots in Melbourne. “We don’t stick to one style – our bagels have a glass-like crunch on the outside and a soft, open crumb inside. We’ve treated creating this bagel like creating the perfect loaf of bread,” Muir-Rigby told Broadsheet. And the venue will be minimalist and functional, with enough seating inside and out to accommodate customers who want to dine in.

5 Smith Street Collingwood
Expected opening: January

Beit Siti

Falastini Food Truck owner Rahaf Al Khatib is readying homey Palestinian restaurant Beit Siti. The casual spot will be decorated with lush fabrics and other items belonging to Al Khatib’s grandma, and will serve her grandmother’s dishes including makloubeh (a rice dish packed with fried cauliflower, eggplant and chicken or lamb, flipped upside down before serving) and musakhan (confit onion, sumac chicken and yoghurt sauce loaded into a wrap or served atop crisp fried flatbread). There’ll also be a pantry stocking house-made condiments, spice mixes and other Beit Siti products. Plus, a bigger selection of pastries.

150 Bell Street, Coburg
Expected opening: February.

Baker Bleu Cremorne

Mike and Mia Russell of Baker Bleu will open their first dine-in spot this year. It’ll be the sourdough maker’s bigger operation (eclipsing the group’s Sydney outlet) and be open seven days a week. The new location will have the usual Baker Bleu favourites including country rolls, sourdough croissants and cinnamon buns to grab-and-go as well as pizzas and plenty of sandwich options.

65 Dover Street, Cremorne
Expected opening: January

Supaa

Before Stefanie Breschi and Alex Boffa opened their new-wave Japanese restaurant Future Future in 2018, the plan was to open a low-key bento shop. But then they found the century-old former art gallery in Richmond, which called for something a little more expansive.

Six years on, an evolution of their original vision is coming to fruition in Suupaa (“supermarket” in Japanese), a Japanese-inspired convenience store and casual diner in Cremorne (in the same development as the new Baker Bleu). They’re opening it with co-owner and Future Future head chef Atsushi Kawakami, who cut his teeth in Tokyo restaurants.

Expect a fried egg sandwich with curry ketchup, black garlic relish and American cheese between pillowy shokupan. Plus, Melbourne Italian references in the mortadella onigiri (a riff on the classic spam onigiri), and chicken and ’nduja nuggets.

65 Dover Street, Cremorne
Expected opening: January.

Nora Thai CBD

When uni friends Thunyaluk “Palmmy” Aninpukkanuntin and Duangdao “Kana” Bannakorn opened Nora Thai in 2023, they kept things modest. The South Yarra venue has just 20 seats and a minimal fit-out with just a curtain separating the kitchen from the dining room.

But the restaurant, with its southern Thai food including fiery dry red curries and spicy petai beans with prawn-and-pork mince, has become a favourite. The duo are now expanding, opening a bigger second location in the CBD.

111 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Expected opening: January.

Dua

Raymond Tan, makes some of the best cakes and cookies in Melbourne at his Little Collins Street bakery Raya. Now, Tan is opening Dua (which means “two” in Malay), a bakery next to Hope St Radio in Collingwood Yards.

Dua will specialise in three types of bread with Japanese and Filipino origins: shokupan, a fluffy, rich milk bread; shio pan, which is lighter, with a subtle saltiness and crisp crust; and pandesal, which is soft, sweet and salty with a breadcrumb-coated crust. There’ll be a grazing plate with sambal, potato salad, soft-boiled eggs and a slab of char siu or bakkwa (salty-sweet Chinese jerky), with sweet bread on the side. Plus, salads riffing on dishes like chicken rice and mapo tofu.

35 Johnston Street, Collingwood
Expected opening: January.

Barragunda Dining

This Cape Schanck restaurant from chef Simone Watts, who trained under Greg Malouf at Momo, on Barragunda Estate will have its own kitchen garden and its own herds of cattle and sheep. Watts plans for the 40-seater to serve only estate-grown produce, including native ingredients grown by her partner Sam Humphries at the property’s native nursery. The dining room overlooks the market garden, and the restaurant will also make use of the fruit grown on the property’s 800-tree strong orchard.

Barragunda Estate, Cape Schanck
Expected opening: February.

Sachi

Former Kisume chef Reki Reinantha launched Sachi, a casual concept specialising in chirashi bowls and nigiri sushi, as a pop-up at Leonie Upstairs in February 2023. He then temporarily moved the pop-up to the former Shizuku Ramen space on Burwood Road, Hawthorn. Reinantha has finally found a home for a permanent Sachi restaurant in the city.

179 Queen St, Melbourne
Expected opening: March.

To Be Frank Brunswick East

Elsternwick and Collingwood favourite To Be Frank will open its third bakery at East Brunswick Village. Expect a play on facturas, an Argentinian pastry from co-owner Franco Villalva’s childhood that the bakeries are known for, as well as slow-fermented breads and laminated pastries.

127-149 Nicholson St, Brunswick East
Expected opening: April.

Untitled Andrew McConnell Restaurant, CBD

We know very little about the new restaurant from Melbourne hospo gun Andrew McConnell, whose Trader House group is behind some of the city’s best restaurants including Obama-approved Gimlet, Cutler & Co and Supernormal. What we do know is McConnell is taking over the Becco space at 25 Crossley Street to open a yet-to-be-named restaurant that will start service this year.

25 Crossley Street, Melbourne

Additional reporting by Claire Adey, Daniela Frangos and Haymun Win