where's the best in 2025?

   

Mankoushe back in 2012

It's here - probably the last 2025 retrospective you'll see circulated! The blog has experienced lags before, though none of this length. Chalk it up to some minor health hiccups, some other interests to pursue, and - probably most of all - some very screen-heavy times during my job that put me off ever opening a laptop in my off-hours.

This lapse has enabled us to report a resurrection! Our local all-you-can-eat Sri Lankan restaurant, Maalu Maalu, closed mid-2025 and has reopened in 2026! We'll have to get back in and report any changes we've noticed. The incredible Vola Foods closed around the same time, but it's worth keeping a sharp eye on their social media for pop-ups. This Borderland gave us a generous 8 month warning of their planned closure, enabling us to enjoy one more meal. There've been the more usual briefly or unannounced closures - Milkwood, Small Axe Kitchen, Banh Mi Nights, Ge'ez Ethiopean Restaurant, Big Esso, Madame K, Girls & Boys. The one that's hit hardest is Mankoushe - in the 15 years that they operated, we blogged them 11 times and visited many more besides. 

   

Just one way to enjoy Tofu Shoten

Happily, there are plenty of new and new-to-us eateries to celebrate. For 2025, the where's the best? page welcomes Beautiful Jim Key, Beit Siti, Lunar, Short Round, Sleepys and Walrus to our inner north brunch listings. The Sporting Club Hotel is back and bougier than ever; there are also good dinners to be had at Biang! Biang!, Chanhouse, Miss Moses and My Asian Neighbour. Perhaps the best of all is Tofu Shoten, a takeaway that is an entire category unto itself.

2025 was the first time in six years that I crossed the Australian border. We had some really memorable times and meals in Japan and Taiwan (captured in one, two, three, four posts.).

   

Miyo sensei and Naoko guide us through vegan Japanese cooking at Idées Kamakura

Browsing through the two past years of cooking turned up recipes that have earned repetition and where's the best? status. Michael, more than me, has logged hit after hit from Hetty Lui McKinnon and Meera Sodha: charred cauliflower & crispy tofu with sweet peanut sauce, sesame noodles with charred broccoli & chilli oil, celery-cashew stir-fry with a food court omelette, caramelised garlic, zucchini & butter beans, tahini & soya mince noodles with pickled radishes, blistered beans with gnocchi Trapanese, kale dumplings with brothy butter beans, omelette roll sushi rice bowl. Dinner has been transformed! 

My kitchen wins have skewed cosy: porridge in our relatively new microwave, cheesy scone wedges to accompany soup, and vegan chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream, just for the sake of testing out my op-shopped silicon moulds. We've had a lot of fun with friends getting back into vegan potlucking, usually with a feature ingredient in mind. It's inspired me to sneak odd fruits into crumble and potato chips into biscuits, try making sesame toast at home and even buy an ice shaver off facebook marketplace. Michael and Lui McKinnon teamed up once again for some show-stopping salt'n'pepper gems.

   

Mushroom sesame toast

2026 is already a quarter done, so I've got a head-start on forecasting what's ahead for the blog. This is the year that where's the beef? will turn twenty years old. It marks the anniversary of Michael's and my move to Melbourne, when we walked down to Carlton Readings and bought a Cheap Eats 2006 guide. We've held onto that guide and we'll be returning and reviewing a bunch of stalwarts throughout the year. I hope you'll join us!

Corn & sour cream filo pie

December 25, 2025

   

My mum, brother and aunty visited our place for Christmas in 2025. They don't expect anything fancy of us but are always very appreciative when Michael and I cook. The weather was right for a picnic at the nearest park so we planned a menu that we could feasibly take down there. The centrepiece was a filo pie stuffed with charred corn kernels, spring onions, feta and sour cream.

I adjusted the recipe to suit my style. I thought, mid-summer, that fresh corn would be much more fun than canned. I sautéed the spring onions, instead of mixing them into the filling uncooked, because I prefer my onions tender. Dragging the pastry sheets through the thick filling seemed unwieldy, so I just layered up the filo and filling in turns as I'm accustomed to. And I used the whole box of filo, instead of the fraction suggested in the recipe, for convenience.

This pie was worthy of the occasion, standing tall and golden with a creamy and gently savoury centre. We didn't mind spilling pastry shards all over the blanket. The pie was well teamed with a pomegranate molasses-dressed tomato salad and roasted asparagus topped with capers and almonds. We followed up with bienenstich for dessert at home. 

Corn & sour cream pie

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi in The Guardian)

the kernels from 2 cobs corn

300g spring onions, finely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 eggs

300g sour cream

200g feta, crumbled into 2-3cm pieces

100ml milk

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

salt and pepper

spray oil

375g box filo pastry

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

100g baby cornichons

Place a medium frying pan over medium-hot heat and add the corn kernels. Stir them only occasionally, allowing them to char. Before they properly burn, transfer the kernels to a large bowl. Keep the heat in the pan going, and sauté the spring onions in a bit of oil until tender; when they're ready, turn off the heat and add them to the corn in the bowl. Beat the eggs and pour them onto the corn; add the sour cream, feta, milk, baking powder, salt and pepper, stirring everything together until well combined.

Preheat an oven to 200°C and line a springform cake dish with baking paper. Unpack the filo pastry and roll it up in a lightly damp tea towel. Spray oil into the cake dish and build up some filo sheets to cover the base and sides. Spoon in about half of the corn filling, then scrunch up some more pastry sheets and spray them with a bit of oil in between; repeat with the remaining corn filling and messily layer the rest of the filo sheets with some oil on top. Give the top a final oil spray and sprinkle over the sesame seeds. 

Bake the pie for about 40 minutes, until golden on top, then allow it to cool for up to an hour, before serving with the cornichons on the side.

Daphne

December 11, 2025

   

Daphne is the younger sibling of Etta, probably our favourite fancy restaurant in Melbourne - it arrived in time for a first visit on my birthday. Daphne is going for a more casual but still-special experience compared to Etta, and it was near-full and absolutely buzzing on our visit. The menu is varied and clearly demonstrates what they have to offer - a martini club, a steak night, oysters, homemade pasta with a glass of wine, a fancy hot dog with fries and tarragon mayo, a bougie little kids' menu. The emphasis is far from vegetarian but there's more than enough to cobble together a meal. 

We started with cocktails! Of the four martinis on offer, Michael tried a Daphne Dirty ($25), which featured olive oil washed Vansetter vodka and Perello Picante olives. Extending the theme, I sipped an olive oil sour ($24), which mixed Buffalo Trace bourbon with amaretto, the titular olive oil, honey and citrus.

   

We started with a medley of melon, cucumber, goats' cheese and sorrel ($16). It was novel, summery and spicy. (It was tough to choose between this and the Bloody Mary heirloom tomatoes.)

   

Asparagus soon followed ($18), showered with capers and parmesan.

   

I felt ready for the second Cobb salad of my life ($29) - all I remembered of the first was that it was huge, and involved lettuce and mock bacon. 'Huge' does seem to be the defining feature, with this one similarly piling on the lettuce, corn, avocado, cherry tomatoes, beetroot and capsicum, with a bit of boiled egg, chives and plenty of ranch dressing to go around.

   

This all had us working up to the heartiest vegetarian dish on the menu, a leek and cheddar pot pie ($28) with some compensatory mixed bitter leaves. It's hard to fault a rich pie like this in any season.

   

For dessert we shared a chocolate crémeux topped with fior di latte gelato and chocolate crackle ($14). It read a little ho-hum to me but actually I loved these contrasting textures and shades of milk and chocolate - it reminded me of my beloved frozen chocolate crunch. The staff recommended an excellent wine for Michael to pair with it too (I think it was Lichtenberger González Blaufränkisch).

This first meal at Daphne was a piecemeal but fun ride - it'll be interesting to see how this venue evolves with time.

____________

Daphne

52 Lygon St, Brunswick East

9191 9410

food, drinks

https://daphne.melbourne/

Accessibility: Daphne has three steps up on entry. Furniture is moderately spaced, a mixture of low tables with backed chairs, high benches with back stools, and booth seating. We ordered and paid at our table, and didn't visit the toilets.

Sticky apricot, rosemary & almond cake

December 10-11, 2025

   

Long time readers will be well aware that Cindy is really the baker in this household. My attempts at sweet treats are occasional and perilous, usually limited to a work morning tea or, classically, Cindy's birthday. In the months before the big day this year, one of my more talented baking pals started raving about this cake, an apricot, rosemary and polenta situation from the Kitchen Projects substack. December is stone fruit season, so it seemed like a perfect solution to my annual baking challenge.

It's entirely gluten free, but heavy on the dairy and eggs. The most surprising step in the recipe is the use of cooked polenta, which is blended up with eggs as kind of the core of the cake batter - it's a bit of a faff, but the smooth, dense texture is worth it. I could have pressed the apricots in a bit deeper and baked the whole thing for a bit longer, but this was still a delicious outcome - the sweet, sticky apricots go nicely with the rosemary. Definitely a winner for the coeliacs in your life, and probably a hit with everyone who likes sweet treats.

   

Sticky apricot, rosemary & almond cake

(from this recipe on the Kitchen Projects substack)

115g butter

110g sugar

2 eggs

40g dried polenta

140 almond meal

3g baking powder

3g salt

cooked polenta

20g polenta

100g milk

topping

4 apricots, halved

30g butter

30g sugar

a couple of teaspoons of chopped rosemary and some small little bushels

Cook your polenta first, by heating the milk up to a gentle simmer and whisking in the polenta - keep whisking until it's creamy and smooth and then kill the heat and leave to cool.

Once it has cooled down blend the cooked polenta with your 2 eggs and set aside.

Now cook your apricots. Melt the butter in a decent sized frying pan. Add the sugar and, once it's bubbling, add the finely chopped rosemary and pop the apricots in, cut side down. Sprinkle the rosemary bushels in and cook on low heat for 8-10 minutes, until they've got a little bit of colour on them.

Now pre-heat your oven to 170°C and line a round 20 cm cake tin. Time to put your cake together. Cream the butter and sugar in a big bowl and then beat through the blended polenta/egg mix. 

Combine all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl (almond meal, dried polenta, baking powder and salt) and then stir the dry mix into the main batter bowl. Pour the mix into your cake tin and then press the apricots into the batter, before pouring over the rosemary/butter/sugar mix over the top.

Bake for at least 30 minutes - I got worried at about 35 and took it out, but it could definitely have been pushed a bit further to get a really nice golden top. 

True North VI

December 11, 2025

   

I'll be honest: I was actually hoping to have my birthday lunch at Beit Siti. But they were taking a well-deserved break and it was no disappointment to head a little down the street to True North instead. Their menu is full of fun foods, with endless adaptations explicitly laid out. Do you want yours with Nuttelex or butter? An added egg? Bacon or facon? Some feta, or even salt and pepper tofu? They can do that. Also, they have a list of seven house-made non-alcoholic drinks! I had a blackberry and ginger fizz ($7).

   

I went back and forth on the Fermental As Anything ($24): uninspired by the name yet into the idea of smashed avo with pickley bits; not thrilled by the toast stacking or the possible domination of colourless tomato and raw onion over avocado... ultimately actually very, very pleased and finishing the lot! This was pebre, not salsa - lighter on the tomato with more chopped pickles than onions, a dash of rocket, and a train of fermented chilli tahini. This meal was bright, summery and satisfying.

   

Michael gets a bit excited every time he sees congee on a menu, so it was immediately the vegan-friendly Oatis Redding ($24) for him. As the name suggests, it's oat and not rice based, built up with mushrooms, kimchi, spring onion, chilli oil, fried shallots and, for a fee, salt and pepper tofu (+$6). He loved the lot, and I was impressed by the tofu chunk he let me taste - they're available direct from the sides list and I wanna get my own serve with whatever I order next at True North.

   

True North need never just be a Plan B - they've brought their A game every time we've visited.

____________

You can read about one, two, three, four, five of our previous visits to True North.

____________

True North 

2A Munro St, Coburg 

9917 2262 

food, drinks

https://truenorth3058.com/

Accessibility: There's a small step on entry and a pretty crowded interior (especially on the weekends when the stools at the bar are in use). We ordered at the table and paid at a high counter. The toilet is a narrow non-gendered cubicle.