• “Don’t knock it until you try it”: perennially busy sandwich shop Nico’s is doing grilled-cheese choc-tops – in collaboration with oddball ice-creamery Kenny Lover – all summer long.

• Find perfectly crisp parmas, Wagyu Philly cheesesteaks and pillowy truffle gnocchi at Armadale’s art deco Orrong Hotel. It’s reopened after a careful restoration by a crack team of publicans.

• Recipe: celebrity chef Miguel Maestre’s jamon-and-manchego jaffle is some kind of magical, ingenious invention.

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• There’s a one-day-only Filipino bake sale at West Footscray’s Migrant Coffee this weekend. Get a load of these sweet treats.

• First Look: all aboard the just-reopened Turkish Riviera-inspired Arbory Afloat for killer doner kebabs, potent Turkish teapot cocktails and more.

• If you’re unenthused by run-of-the-mill acai bowls (or acai bowls in general), there’s one from Mr Squeeze that comes in a bloody pineapple – it’s halved, hollowed out and packed with purply goodness.

• One of Melbourne’s most anticipated restaurants of the year, Nomad, is almost here. It’s bringing charry, stretched-to-order flatbread; oil-doused burrata atop fennel jam; and smoked mussels with a hash brown. Yes.

• It’s all-you-can-eat cherries at this cherry-picking festival (though you have to pay for what you take home).

• These gluten-free spring dessert boxes – by Hotel Windsor’s executive pastry chef Felix Goodwin – are exceptional. Expect canelé with cumquat marmalade, pandan-and-taro Swiss rolls and more.

• Essendon bottle shop Primrose & Vine has opened a cosy next-door wine bar (with “dining in the drive-through”). It’s doing jamon plates and build-your-own cheeseboards, or you can opt for a woodfired pizza.

• Smells like gin and tastes like Christmas: Four Pillars’ Christmas gin is back, alongside a festive range of gin-spiked puddings, turkey relish, ham glaze and even tea towels.

• $2 oysters, a $6 happy hour and bottomless brunch: Port Melbourne’s Exchange Hotel is reopening its pop-up beach club.

• Like Afterpay for dining out, Payo lets you eat now and pay later at 700 Aussie venues.