EAT > Blackbird, Melbourne (14/20)

Blackbird Melbourne is a three-level, moodily newcomer on Flinders Lane that feels built for long, steak lunches built around fire, flesh and a little theatre. It’s the Brisbane icon reimagined for Melbourne, with an open kitchen anchored by a Josper grill, a serious cellar and a cocktail bar that leans hard into nostalgia. 

AMBIENCE >

Blackbird occupies the former Botswana Butchery site at Collins Place, and much of the layout and design is the same, spreading itself over three levels that each feel like a slightly different night out. Flinders Lane street level is the lure: a low-lit cocktail lounge with quartzite backlit bar, plush leather and just enough brass and mirror to flirt with decadence.

Upstairs, the main dining room reads as modern steakhouse noir – archways and dark timber, mirrored ceilings, dramatic chandeliers and a constant glow from the open kitchen and its Josper grill. Tables are generously spaced, the linen crisp, and there’s a clubbiness to the room that suits long, multi-course evenings and the kind of conversations you don’t want to rush.

On the upper level there are private and semi-private spaces which leans into the events DNA of the Brisbane original, with views and enough polish to handle everything from boardroom dinners to milestone birthdays. However it is unmistakably Melbourne – darker, a touch moodier than its riverfront sibling – but there’s a Queensland warmth in the welcome that softens the edges.

EAT >

The menu is modern Australian in the old-school sense of the phrase: a confident sweep of premium beef, seafood and snacks threaded with native ingredients and smoke. Group Executive Chef Jake Nicolson and Melbourne Executive Chef Tim Menger have written a tight, detail-obsessed document that takes steakhouse tropes and lifts them with technique.

You start, ideally, with oysters – perhaps dressed with finger lime and a shallot mignonette that’s bright enough to cut through a pre-dinner martini – and a seafood plateau that can easily function as either generous entrée or a laissez-faire main for two. There might be scampi tartare perched on tapioca crisps, crowned with blue crab roe, all crunch and saline sweetness; it’s the sort of one-bite snack that signals the kitchen is paying attention.

On land, a duck and foie gras pâté is pure nostalgia: suave, perfectly seasoned, and served with just enough acidity on the side to keep each mouthful in check. Beef is the main event, though, with cuts dry-aged in house and paraded in a way that will delight the steak completist – think Flinders Angus tenderloin with a horseradish-bright slaw and a punchy café de beurre that melts into the flesh in slow motion.

The Josper grill does double duty on seafood and vegetables, gifting everything a whisper of smoke without bullying the produce. Sides lean classic – fries, greens, perhaps a potato gratin – but land with the precision you expect at this price point, and the sort of generous plating that makes sharing not just possible but sensible.

Dessert, if you still have the stamina, continues the hits-of-the-past theme: think elevated riffs on childhood favourites rather than cheffy puzzles. It’s comfort in a nicely weighted bowl, and a clever way to end a meal that’s otherwise all about scale and swagger.

DRINK >

Blackbird’s bar program wears its heart firmly on its starched sleeve, trading in martinis, negronis, Manhattans and other grown-up standards that have been quietly tweaked rather than aggressively rewritten. There’s a strong thread of nostalgia – drinks that nod to another era, poured over a serious cube of ice, in glassware that feels good in the hand.

The wine list is where the restaurant flexes hardest: page after page of local and international names, with depth in Victorian and Queensland producers and enough back-vintage clout to keep collectors interested. Staff move confidently between big cabernets, cult pinots and more adventurous picks, guiding you towards bottles that make sense with both the char of the grill and the richness of the sauces.

By the glass, there’s plenty for a lighter lunch – crisp whites, elegant rosés, a few skin-contact curiosities – as well as fortifieds and digestifs if you’re committing to the full steakhouse arc. In the cocktail lounge downstairs, the same list skews a touch more playful, the kind of room where one martini too many feels like part of the brief.

CONCLUSION >

Blackbird is not trying to reinvent Melbourne dining so much as remind the city how satisfying a classic, high-end steak and seafood house can be when every lever – room, menu, cellar, service – is pulled with intent. It feels like a natural extension of the Brisbane original, but with enough urban grit and mood to read as a true Melbourne local rather than an out-of-town transplant.

Botswana Butchery brought a classic themed steak venue to Melbourne, they spent a lot re-inventing the corner of Flinders Lane and Exhibition Street but the Collins Place venue did not survive very long after COVID. Blackbird has reinvented the venue, it is familiar, same same but different.

Come for the spectacle of the grill and the lure of a perfectly cooked steak; stay for the sense that this is a place built for ritual – standing reservations, celebrations, the kind of dinners you remember in fragments of glassware, smoke and conversation.

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Image Credit | ALMANAK & Blackbird Melbourne

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