• Diaries at the ready: these are Melbourne’s most anticipated restaurant and bar openings of 2021.

• Extravagance is guaranteed with Lee Ho Fook’s Chinese New Year menu. Just look at these southern rock lobster noods with house-made XO sauce.

• This charmingly refurbed Collingwood pub is doing a playful riff on the Chiko Roll with lemon-myrtle ranch (and some familiar-looking packaging).

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• Slurp $2 oysters and sip $9 glasses of prosecco on Wednesdays at Hemingway’s Wine Room.

• Or head bayside for two-buck molluscs at Stokehouse’s Stokebar every day this month.

• At Shane Delia’s newly reopened north-side bar, find a borek-doughnut hybrid, lamb shoulder with date-and-lamb-fat sauce, and Turkish Delight Martinis.

• Local chocolate brand Birdsnake has released a squeezy choc sauce called Strange Magic. Serving suggestion: “Drown your pancakes, cereal, morning oats or sorrows.” I’m on board.

• Splash some serious cash at Kisumé’s $550-a-head Lunar New Year Chef’s Table dinner. We’re promised specially designed hazelnut dacquoise.

• There’s grilled olive focaccia, peachy panzanella, souped-up stracciatella and more at Embla’s pop-up rooftop bar and cinema. It’s here for a good time, not a long time.

• Cult Sydney charcoal-chicken joint El Jannah is opening a drive-through in Melbourne.

• After five years, Ian Curley’s French Saloon – as we knew it – has closed.

• Tennis young gun Stefanos Tsitsipas has collaborated with 24-hour Greek institution Stalactites on a limited-edition souva. It’s for a great cause.

• You won’t find vanilla or plain-Jane chocolate at this new Brunswick ice-creamery, by a pastry chef who’s worked in Michelin-starred restaurants.

• Sworn off the sauce – or attempting to? Non’s latest zero-alcohol, orange-wine-like drop blends tomato water, peppers and coriander seed.

• St Kilda’s Prince Public Bar now has a cracking breakfast menu. The cheesy brioche burg comes with thick-cut mortadella, a fried egg, dill pickle and peri-peri mayo.

• Thornbury’s 3 Ravens is spilling out onto the street every weekend this summer with a pop-up beer garden.