New Indian Restaurants in Melbourne (October 2026)

TL;DR

• Melbourne's Indian restaurant scene has seen several significant openings in 2025–2026, bringing regional Indian cooking to new audiences across the city
• Kolkata Cricket Club at Crown Southbank blends Bengali-influenced cuisine with a sports bar setting and earned a Chef's Hat in 2025 🏏
• Bungalow 147 by the Bay in Williamstown opened in 2026 with regional eastern Indian cooking from chef Deepak Mishra at a waterfront setting
• Saadi in the Melbourne CBD went permanent in late 2025 after years of pop-ups, bringing pan-Indian homecooking from chefs Saavni Krishnan and Sriram Aditya Suresh
• The Indian diaspora in Melbourne is now seeing its culinary traditions represented at fine-dining and mid-market levels alongside the established community restaurants

Melbourne's Indian Restaurant Scene in October 2026

Melbourne has long had a substantial Indian diaspora, and the city's restaurant scene reflects that community's presence across different suburbs — from established South Asian residential areas in the outer east and southeast to newer arrivals drawn by the universities and professional sectors. What 2025 and 2026 have added to the mix is a generation of chefs who trained at high-end kitchens and have now opened their own venues with a sharper focus on regional Indian cooking rather than the generic curry-house model.

This shift is not unique to Melbourne, but the city's dining culture — competitive, curious, and well-funded — has made it a productive environment for Indian restaurants that want to present a more specific vision of the sub-continent's cooking. The venues below represent the most discussed recent Indian and Desi openings as of October 2026, alongside the context of Melbourne's broader South Asian dining ecosystem.

Kolkata Cricket Club: Bengali Cuisine at Crown

Kolkata Cricket Club opened in December 2024 at 8 Whiteman Street, Southbank, inside Crown Melbourne. Chef Mischa Tropp — who also runs Toddy Shop in Fitzroy — designed the venue around the culinary traditions of Kolkata, blending pan-Indian and Bengali influences with a contemporary approach to technique and presentation.

The format pairs a casual front bar serving Kingfisher lager and tandoor naan with a more formal white-tablecloth dining room behind it. The restaurant seats 150 guests across both areas. In October 2025 a private dining room was added to accommodate corporate bookings and special events. In 2025, the restaurant received a Chef's Hat — one of the standard markers of restaurant quality in the Australian dining scene — confirming its place in Melbourne's upper tier of Indian restaurants.

The cricket club framing extends through the decor and naming, drawing on the deep connection between the sport and South Asian culture without overdoing the theme. The result is a venue that works both as a destination dining room and as a first-stop bar for anyone exploring Southbank.

Insider Tip: The front bar at Kolkata Cricket Club is a lower-commitment entry point if you want to try the kitchen without a full sit-down dinner. Order from the bar snacks menu alongside a Kingfisher and get a sense of the cooking before returning for a main meal on another visit.

Bungalow 147 by the Bay: Eastern Indian Cooking in Williamstown

Bungalow 147 by the Bay opened in 2026 at 147 Nelson Place, Williamstown, in a waterfront building with a courtyard and veranda opening onto Port Phillip Bay. Chef Deepak Mishra, who spent nearly thirty years in luxury hotel kitchens, designed the menu around the food traditions of Odisha and Bengal in eastern India — a part of the country whose cooking is less represented on Australian menus than the North Indian dishes that dominated the city's earlier Indian restaurant landscape.

The menu uses Victorian produce and native Australian ingredients alongside Indian techniques, which places it in a category of restaurants that is relatively rare in Australia. The flavour profile leans toward mustard, panch phoron, coconut, and lighter preparations compared with the cream- and tomato-heavy curries most Melbourne diners associate with Indian food. The building seats 130 diners and includes both a downstairs dining room and a wine bar.

Williamstown is a short drive or train ride from central Melbourne, and the waterfront setting gives the restaurant a character distinct from the city's inner-suburb venues. For those who want Indian cooking alongside a view of the bay, Bungalow 147 by the Bay is currently the city's most distinctive option.

Saadi: Pan-Indian Homecooking in the CBD

Saadi became a permanent restaurant in late 2025 at 18 Punch Lane in the Melbourne CBD, taking over the two-level split space previously occupied by Sunda. Chefs Saavni Krishnan and Sriram Aditya Suresh ran Saadi as a pop-up for several years before making the move to a permanent site, and both brought backgrounds from acclaimed Melbourne restaurants.

The menu draws on pan-Indian homecooking traditions — the kind of regional everyday food that rarely makes it into restaurant menus aimed at non-Indian diners. The stated aim is to challenge Australian diners' preconceptions about what Indian food is, and the approach earned the restaurant a place in Gourmet Traveller's best new talent recognition for 2026. Service runs Wednesday through Saturday, with lunch offered on Fridays and Saturdays.

The CBD location puts Saadi within walking distance of Melbourne's major hotels and office buildings, making it a practical option for a business lunch or a longer dinner. Bookings are recommended, particularly at weekends.

The Broader Melbourne Indian Dining Context

Beyond the new openings, Melbourne has an established network of Indian community restaurants across suburbs with significant South Asian populations. Dandenong in the outer southeast is the most concentrated area for South Indian food, particularly Tamil and Telugu cooking. Glen Waverley and Box Hill each have their own clusters of Indian grocers, sweet shops, and restaurants serving the diaspora community.

For South Indian food in the inner suburbs, Sri Dwaraka on Toorak Road in Camberwell is frequently cited for its tub biryani. These community-facing restaurants operate at different price points and with different assumptions about their audience than the CBD and inner-suburb openings described above. Both types are worth exploring.

Around Diwali in late October or early November, demand for Indian sweets at Melbourne's mithai shops spikes significantly. The more popular specialist sweet shops in Dandenong and Glen Waverley can run low on stock towards the festival itself, so buying early is worth considering.

FAQ

Is Melbourne a good city for South Indian food? Yes. The South Indian Tamil and Telugu diaspora communities in Melbourne support a range of restaurants serving dosas, idli, sambar, and rice meals. Dandenong and Camberwell are particularly useful starting points.

Are Melbourne's Indian restaurants suitable for vegetarians? Most Indian restaurants in Melbourne offer substantial vegetarian menus. Saadi has strong vegetarian options, and many community restaurants in the outer suburbs are fully vegetarian or heavily vegetarian in their offering.

Where should I look for Indian groceries in Melbourne? Indian grocery stores are most concentrated in Dandenong, Glen Waverley, and Box Hill. Central Melbourne also has smaller specialist grocers, particularly around the CBD.

Are the new restaurants suitable for large groups? Kolkata Cricket Club at Crown can accommodate larger groups and has a dedicated private dining room. Saadi's two-level space also makes it manageable for group bookings, but confirm availability with the restaurant in advance.

How do I know if a Melbourne Indian restaurant is halal? Halal status varies. Confirm with each restaurant before visiting, as it is not standardised across Melbourne's Indian dining scene and labelling is inconsistent.

Bottom Line

Melbourne's Indian restaurant scene in October 2026 brings together a new generation of chef-led venues — Saadi, Bungalow 147 by the Bay, and Kolkata Cricket Club — alongside long-established community restaurants serving the Indian diaspora across the outer suburbs. The new openings are bringing regional Indian cooking to Melbourne's wider dining audience, while the community restaurants continue to serve the food that South Asian Melburnians grew up with. For anyone following the Indian food trail in Melbourne, there is now more choice at both ends of the spectrum than at any point in the city's history.