First announced over a year ago, Melbourne’s newest opening is finally here. Brought to us by the team behind powerhouse cafes Top Paddock and Kettle Black, there has been undoubtedly a level of excitement for what’s in store at Higher Ground. It’s a cafe, a restaurant, a bar, a little bit of everything.
Hiding unassumingly behind a red brick facade at the lesser travelled end of Little Bourke Street, it can be easily missed if it weren’t for a discreet black sign wrapping around the corner edge. The opening crowds of people waiting for tables will be hard to miss, however.
The space is a former power substation and the cafe has kept as much of the original structure as they can, with the sweeping high peaked roof and exposed beams creating a large, open dining hall atmosphere. To quote a popular sci-fi series, it’s bigger on the inside.
Most of the lighting is natural during the day and provided by large arched windows in the outside facing walls. At night, light is reflected off the ceiling to fill the space and supplemented by table lamps.
Potted plants are scattered throughout, including a large stacked display in the middle, to add that little bit of green.
Dining is split between 3 levels; ground level with small tables and booths, communal benches and bar seating, a middle half-level along one side and corner with even more small tables and bar seating and an upper lounge area, the aptly-named “Higher Lounge”, with couch seating.
The food menu. For those that have been to Top Paddock and Kettle Black, you can expect even more of those slightly left-field dishes you’ve grown to love.
Loosely ordered from breakfast to lunch dishes, menu highlights include the buffalo yoghurt chia bowl, semolina porridge, minced lamb fry up, spiced cauliflower with scrambled eggs and the wagyu short rib roll. There’s also a whole steamed market fish. In the breakfast section.
The dinner menu consists of an array of small share plates plus a couple of larger share dishes and includes salt grass lamb ribs, ricotta gnocchi, cured kingfish and beef tartare.
Although slightly on the small side, dish presentation and flavour combinations are exquisite throughout the day and night with many rivalling what would be found in a fine dining restaurant. A perfect example is one of the dessert options; the whole boiled mandarin cheesecake, a cheesecake that is inside a hollowed-out mandarin skin. A stunning must try.
Drinks on offer are a full range of coffee (with single origin and blend options available as espresso or filter), tea, wine, beer and cocktails available all day long.
The overall experience and service is a difficult to describe mix between formal and casual. Staff all in matching collared shirts, pants and aprons and operate like clockwork, but still open for a casual chat. The day and night services don’t feel strictly like a cafe or restaurant respectively but rather just somewhere you can go to eat, drink, meet or relax.
It is exciting to see another popular cafe group jump on the all day dining journey, and with a gorgeous space and exciting menu, Higher Ground brings life to a largely residential corner of the CBD and is sure to be a city favourite.
Higher Ground
650 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
03 8899 6219
http://www.highergroundmelbourne.com.au