HIGHER GROUND

650 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne; (03) 8899 6219 highergroundmelbourne.com.au Open seven days for breakfast and lunch, and Thursday-Saturday for dinner

The first thing that hits you is the space: this former power station at the unloved end of Melbourne’s CBD has been artfully reimagined as a café-restaurant wonderland with nosebleed-high ceilings. It’s little wonder Higher Ground is the spiritual home of the brunch movement (and a contender in our Business Travel Awards on page 119). Would you expect anything less of the greatest venue yet from the café royalty behind Top Paddock and The Kettle Black? The two-speed menu appeals to diners’ basic instincts (the minced-lamb fry-up with eggplant and eggs is a guaranteed hangover cure) and higher ideals (quinoa and seed Bircher muesli with roasted blood plum, seed crumble and almond milk or cleansing steamed fish in Japanese broth with vegetable noodles). Meanwhile, the ricotta hot cakes with maple syrup sell like, well, hot cakes.