Brunch cafés in Melbourne

What brunch costs in Melbourne

As of October 2026, the menu at Auction Rooms on Errol Street prices eggs your way at A$17, avo on toast at A$21 and most cooked plates, from a beer-braised pork Benedict to halloumi corn fritters, at A$28. A flat white there is A$6.10.²

South of Johnston on Oxford Street, Collingwood, asks A$23.90 for crushed avocado and A$29.99 for smoked salmon, chilli eggs or corn and zucchini fritters. It adds 10% to food on weekends and 15% on public holidays.³

The avocado price has a history here. In May 2017 the property developer Tim Gurner said young people should not be buying smashed avocado on toast and A$4 lattes if they wanted to own a home.⁵ In April 2024 a Melbourne café, The Glass Den, drew complaints for charging A$27.50 for sliced avocado on toast and A$28.50 for the smashed version.⁴

How Melbourne brunch menus are changing

Nathan Toleman, who co-founded Top Paddock, Higher Ground and Kettle Black (all since sold), told Broadsheet that 10 to 15 years ago a successful Melbourne café followed a fairly defined formula. Broadsheet calls 2010, the year Instagram launched, the watershed year.¹

Raymond Tan, who owns Raya and Dua in Collingwood, sees cheaper, plainer food winning: fewer scrambled and poached eggs, more boiled ones. His argument is that brunch is breakfast and lunch and should not cost as much as dinner.¹ Japanese, Mexican, Filipino and French Lebanese breakfasts are spreading, and Florian in Carlton North, opened in 2021, has run a Friday diner service since 2023.¹

Where Melbourne's brunch cafés cluster

Fairfield & Ivanhoe has the most brunch cafés, just ahead of the CBD. Three share Railway Place in Fairfield: Bean Counter Cafe at number 15, 15 lbs Cafe at 21–23 and The Tea Rose at 25. 15 lbs opens at 06:30 on weekdays, and Three Locals at 127 Station Street serves daily 07:00–17:00.

Elwood has its own strip on Ormond Road, with Lark at 114, Who is Bunker Spreckels at 122 and Combi at 138–140. In Carlton, Le Miel at 330 Cardigan Street opens 07:00–16:00 on weekdays. North Melbourne pairs Auction Rooms at 103–107 Errol Street with Fandango at 97, and in Brunswick, Brunswick Foodstore is at 29 Weston Street and Toledo Brunswick at 116 Albert Street.

Timing brunch in Melbourne

Brunch here ends in the afternoon. Most brunch cafés close between 15:00 and 17:00; Proud Mary and Brunswick Foodstore stop at 15:00 every day. The Journal Cafe at 253 Flinders Lane is the late exception, open until 20:00 Monday to Thursday and 21:00 on Fridays.

Weekends start later. Proud Mary opens at 07:00 on weekdays but 08:00 on Saturdays and Sundays, Auction Rooms moves from 07:00 to 07:30, and KINES at 11 Hope Street, Brunswick, serves 08:00–15:00 every day except Tuesday.