Richmond Dining: Palmer Street & Nearby Food Precincts

Palmer Street sits in Richmond, a few minutes' walk from three of Melbourne's more distinctive dining strips: Victoria Street, Swan Street and Bridge Road. The street itself is mostly residential, best known locally as the former home of JAMU, the Malaysian-leaning restaurant whose history we cover on our home page and in more detail on our restaurant history page. This guide looks at the wider area around it, since that is where most of Richmond's dining actually happens.

Victoria Street: the Vietnamese strip

Victoria Street is Richmond's best-known food destination, long regarded as Melbourne's go-to stretch for Vietnamese food. It runs through the suburb with a dense run of restaurants, bakeries and grocers, many of them family-run for decades, and it is worth visiting on its own terms rather than as an add-on to a trip elsewhere in Richmond. Pho, banh mi and a long list of Vietnamese specialties dominate the menus here, alongside a handful of other Asian cuisines mixed in along the strip.

Swan Street: casual and varied

Swan Street has built up a steady, varied run of casual restaurants and cafes over the years. Recent guides point to spots like a Greek share-plate restaurant and a Middle Eastern cafe along the strip, alongside well-regarded brunch spots further down. It is a good street to walk if you want options rather than a single destination, with cuisines mixed together more than on Victoria Street's Vietnamese-heavy stretch.

Bridge Road: from retail strip to dining destination

Bridge Road spent years as a fashion retail strip before a slow shift toward dining took hold. Guides to the area note that the street bottomed out as a retail destination around 2014 and has been steadily transforming since, with some well-regarded restaurants now anchoring the strip, including a high-end Japanese restaurant that has drawn citywide attention. It is a useful street to know if you want a more considered, sit-down meal rather than something casual.

Getting around Richmond

Richmond is well served by public transport, with Richmond station on the metro network and several tram routes running along or near Swan Street, Bridge Road and Church Street, which makes it straightforward to cover more than one strip in an evening without needing a car. Parking directly on the main strips can be tight on weekend nights, so allowing extra time to park a street or two back, or simply taking the tram, is generally the easier option.

Checking a venue's current location and hours

Because Richmond's dining scene turns over like any inner-city food precinct, with venues opening, closing and changing hands, always check a restaurant's current address and opening hours directly on its own website or official listing before heading out, rather than relying on an older guide or a social media post that may be out of date. This applies as much to venues we mention on this site as to anywhere else, since dining guides, including this one, can go stale between updates.

Planning a visit

If you are putting together an evening around one of these strips, it is worth deciding whether you want a casual walk-in meal or something that needs a booking ahead of time, particularly for weekend dinners or larger groups. Our guide to booking a restaurant in Melbourne covers what to expect from that process generally.

Jamuan Melbourne: Southeast Asian Food & Dining Guide Jamuan Melbourne is an independent reading room for Southeast Asian food in Richmond and… READ MORE How to Book a Restaurant in Melbourne Jamuan Melbourne does not take restaurant bookings. We are an independent food guide, not… RESERVATIONS READ MORE