The Auswine Forum

Anyone know a good BYO restaurant in Melbourne? - city area. In Canberra we are spoiled with a great range of well priced restaurants which are nearly all BYO. Not so, it appears, with the rest of the country where I have much frustration in finding quality food and BYO together. I suspect its not just me who objects to outrageous wine lists - a genteel form of pick-pocketing, as Ive heard it described.

There are some in Melbourne that advertise byo and many more that will let you if you ask nicely beforehand, but corkage can be pretty high. We took a bottle of 1986 Tahbilk 1860 Vines to le restaurant at Sofitel for $25/head corkage, the 90 was on their wine list for about $250, but we were getting the meal for half-price so it was still worth it.

Asiana is worth the tram ride to the end of the line at St Melbourne, also Botanical (2 hats, a short tram ride from the city) has a reasonably priced wine list and you can buy a bottle at the associated bottle shop and bring it in for about $15 corkage.

Try this link:

Melbourne Citysearch

You'll probably have to re-run the search to make it got to next pages though.

I've always had good experiences at Zio's Ristorante. Good Italian food and BYO wine (nominal per bottle corkage).

Located at 14 Lansdowne St. in East Melbourne. Short walk from the Princess Theatre and Parliament House.

Zio's is a good choice.

Other BYO restaurants include

Moretons Brasserie (166 Rathdowne St, Carlton), free corkage.
France Soir (11 Toorak Road, South Yarra), very good winelist as well, $10 corkage per bottle.
Matteo's (533 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy), $15 corkage per bottle.
Vue de Monde (295 Drummond Street, Carlton, $50 corkage per bottle (ask beforehand).

They are all near to the city, I don't know any in the city area.

Jacque Reymond Restaurant
78 Williams Road, Prahran

Very nice french restaurant . Not sure about the corkage