First Nations culture is at the heart of Melbourne – if you know where to look
For a lot of first-time British visitors to Melbourne, the city feels instantly familiar. It’s all as you imagine: Aesop hand wash, avocado on toast (big news – giant pretzels have edged out sourdough as the base for brunch), third wave coffee culture, and a primarily white population. Except, of course, that Australia only recently became a predominantly white country, and places such as Melbourne weren’t always cities.
In recent years there’s been plenty of debate about precisely whose country this is, and a movement to acknowledge the status of First Nations and Torres Straits Islander peoples.
The optics suggest change. Over in Sydney, the first gallery you encounter at the shiny new Sydney Modern Project is devoted to masterpieces and work by up-and-coming First Nations artists. In Melbourne – the most liberal urban hub in the country – tens of thousands march through the streets waving Aboriginal flags on Australia Day on Jan 26, with most Gen Z and Millennial locals renaming it Invasion Day. Emotions can occasionally run high.
This year, a statue of Captain Cook was toppled in the city and the plinth defaced. The incident came just three months after a referendum failed to give the green light to a planned advisory body that would give Indigenous Australians a permanent voice in parliament, though many on both sides agree it was a fudged proposal and campaign.
Many travellers only imagine the Red Centre, Uluru and the Outback when they think of First Nations culture, but five original clans, making up the Kulin Nation, lived in Naarm (Melbourne) and the modern-day city is full of surprises and First National culture. These days, many restaurants and hotels acknowledge via plaques and their websites that they are operating on land belonging to a specific named tribe, and over which state sovereignty has – controversially – never been ceded.
Eating
If you do nothing else in Melbourne, go and eat things that are near impossible to find on other continents. Many of the ingredients have been Aboriginal staples for centuries. At the most elevated level, you’ll find Attica (00 61 3 9530 0111; attica.com.au) in Melbourne. Chef Ben Shewry took it over in 2015 and it is constantly changing, always surprising. Right now, you’ll find a menu with barbecue saltwater crocodile ribs (“Chef suggests you it with your fingers,” says the waiter as it arrives), wattle dhal, emu liver toast, and green ants on your sundae.
Attica is a four-hour, blow-the-budget AU$260 experience. For a casual but no less unusual taste of First Nations grub, go to Big Esso (00 61 3 9121 0510; mabumabu.com.au) in Federation Square – set up by the national treasure Nornie Bero, the Torres Strait Islands equivalent to Nigella and the founder of the Mabu Mabu café and grocery store. This is a buzzing, bright pink restaurant on the land of the Wurundjeri People serving up charred emu and wild boar with native lemongrass and pig’s blood. An evening here is as much fun as it is an education and will set you back about AU$80 a head with cocktails. (When you go, drop by next door to the Koorie Heritage Trust, which is a free-to-enter, brilliant institution exhibiting the work of modern First Nation artists.)
In the 1970s, the Builders Arms Hotel (00 61 3 9417 7700; buildersarmshotel.com.au), which is now a swanky gastro pub owned by the restaurateur Andrew McConnell, was the sole place in now-hip Fitzroy that served Aboriginal customers. McConnell and his team are proud of the building’s place in the area’s history, and they work with the Yalinguth organisation to keep the stories of the past at the Builders Arms alive, with a view to shaping a new kind of all-inclusive future.
The latest First Nations culinary opening in the city is Pawa (pawacatering.com.au) at the Arts Centre, serving lilly pilly croissants, strawberry gum brownies and kangaroo meat pies as well as cocktails made using the kitchen’s own distilled Taka Gin.
Shopping
Australian Vogue is constantly celebrating work by First Nations designers, but it’s often hard to come by. Graphic printed T-shirts by Gammin Threads are on sale at aforementioned Big Esso, which sells sweatshirts for AU$99; the pop-art jewellery by Haus of Dizzy is stocked at various boutiques across town.
Head to Ngali (00 61 3 9686 4550; ngali.com.au), which translates as “us”, in Docklands, for a super-slick store full of silk dresses (AU$395) patterned with work curated by Wiradjuri founder Denni Francisco, then go to Brunswick to Clothing The Gaps (00 61 413 344 590; clothingthegaps.com.au). The store is so boldly painted in the black, red and yellow of the Aboriginal flag (as are the clothes inside), that it’s almost an art installation in its own right.
On entering, an assistant welcomes you and asks if you have been in before. No? “Okay, so almost all the sportswear is ‘ally friendly’, but that rack of ‘Sovereign’ range of clothes over there is ‘mob only’.” (This means it’s solely for members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.)
Culture
One of the most moving experiences you’ll have in Melbourne is a tour of the Botanic Gardens by a First Nations guide. In Melbourne, stay at the United Places (from AU$650 per night, 00 61 3 9866 6467; unitedplaces.com.au) boutique hotel with a basket of breakfast delivered to your room each morning), overlooking the gardens. It’s one of the most modern and luxurious hotels in the city, in a polished-concrete and pared back interiors magazine kind of way, with a Scott Pickett open-fire grill restaurant downstairs.
After breakfast, sign up for a tour of the Botanics ($40), where a guide will tell you the history of the tribes who once lived around Naarm and conjure up a time before the tower blocks, while showing you plants that would have been everyday essentials – from stalks that tasted like to snow peas, plants that served as bandages, and soft leaves that predated Andrex by centuries.
Head to the Melbourne Museum and the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre (00 61 13 11 02; museumsvictoria.com.au/bunjilaka), which has a permanent interactive exhibition about Koorie culture, open daily ($15). As well as a comprehensive display of artefacts, and some great storytelling, there are seasonal exhibitions – until April 21 you can see Unfinished Business, a series of photographic portraits of individuals living with disabilities across the country.
You’ll have been to Big Esso for lunch already, and visited its neighbour the Koorie Heritage Trust (00 61 8662 6313; koorieheritagetrust.com.au), but make sure you book one of the regular guided Birrarung Wilam (River Camp) walks ($33) organised by the latter, taking in sacred sites along the river and surrounding neighbourhoods, illuminating what the city was like when it was wholly Kulin Nation.
You absolutely must make time in Melbourne for a 90-minute drive north and an overnight stay in the vineyards of The Mitchelton (00 61 3 5736 2222; mitchelton.com.au; from $644 per night), the most luxe lodge of its kind close to the city. Everything is dreamy, from the scenery to the cellar door tastings, swimming pool and the restaurant.
But the main reason you need to come is that it’s home to the largest commercial gallery of First Nations art in the country. It was virtually destroyed by floods in 2022, and many masterpieces lost, but it’s now back up and running with a new, constantly changing and selling exhibition. This is no glorified gift shop – the near minimalist, monochrome work of Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri is in the collection of the connoisseur and comedic actor Steve Martin and goes for tens of thousands of dollars.
Essentials
Mark C. O’Flaherty was a guest of Visit Victoria and Visit Melbourne.
