The London Cafe Bar

Mietta's Eating & Drinking in Melbourne 2000

Contributors' Choice
Page 159

Salt cake breezes blow here, ships sail, berth, weigh anchor, sail out. Kitsch new multi-storey apartments peer across choppy waters towards Queenscliff. Joggers, cyclists, Circus Oz, and we're only a handful of tram stops from Collins Street, but we've forgotten the way back to our Flinders Lane home after a day of nautical lazing on the bottom deck of this pub. Mature palm trees, planted yesterday, adorn the lowest level of the vast bayside sky. I get melancholy and euphoric sitting inside doing all-day lunch, dreaming of Boscastle, Whitstable, Fremantle, Rottnest Island, Balmain. Enough of travelling elsewhere. This view too is as good as it gets. The menu is intellligent and appetising. Patrons are happy here and their good-natured expectations of beachy bliss spread warmth throughout. My brother-in-law's brother longs to live opposite and eat and drink here for the rest of his life.

92 Beach Street
Port Melbourne
Melways reference 2J:A6
Phone: 9646 4644
Opening hours: 7 days 7am-late
Licensed
Accepts credit cards
Seats Inside: 130, Outside: 50
Features: Kids encouraged
Favourites: Eggs benedict $8, Fresh seafood risotto $13.50, Lamb fillet served with chilli couscous ragu $13.50

*An updated review can be found in Mietta's Eating & Drinking in Australia 2000 pg97, published by Black Inc., 2000, Vic