Navi

Went out for evening tea at Navi for my partner's daughter's birthday.delicious courses. Excellent service and waitress.

The most amazing culinary experience we've had in a long time.
Exceptional food and service.
Everyone went out of their way to make our evening special.
This place is worth the wait!

Delightfully delicious! A well sequenced lunch with an excellent array of courses. We also had the non-alcoholic pairing which was interesting and different from the usual tonics and tinctures.

This was the best dining and eating experience in my life, that simple. The restaurant accommodated our dietary preferences, reasonably priced for 11 dishes plus snacks, palette cleansers. Highly recommend pairing beverages, the flavour sensations cant be described. Go, go immediately. If you can get in

Talented chef delivering interesting flavours but only got wow factor out of 3 dishes.
Accompanying wines are good, not great, and poured in very small servings leaving one wanting for more at the end of the drnner. Nothing wrong with the place and understand the good reviews but I had such high expectations and ultimately left the place feeling non-plussed.

@restaurantnavi is a hidden gem on a quiet suburban street in Yarraville. The restaurant has a cosy 33-seat capacity, offering an intimate and exclusive Australian degustation dining experience. Julian Hills, the chef and owner, personally oversees every detail, from the hand-made ceramics to the creation of each dish.

I visited earlier this month and scored a seat at the chef's table, with an up-close view of all the action in the open kitchen.

Tasting menu:

- Black garlic, salmon roe macaron
- Bower, macadamia, tuna pancetta pumpkin, miso, pepita
- Emu carpaccio, egg yolk, crackling
- Artichoke, hazelnut, olive, lardo
- Oyster, salted pear, dashi butter

- Bay bug, fermented crepe, burnt butter
- Mushroom, smoked eel, buckwheat koji
- Snapper, radish, mussel, earl grey, pickled magnolia
- Suckling pig, fennel, prune, nasturtium
- Elements of duck

- Lemon, pistachio, lilly pilly
- Pear butterscotch, stroopwafel, blackened artichoke

- S’mores
- Mary’s citrus
- Salted mandarin butterscotch, black sesame

4.5/5 I was really impressed by everything on the menu! Each dish was unique in flavours and textures. Compared to other Australian fine dining experiences like Vue De Monde and Attica, I found myself preferring the dishes here—especially considering they come at a fraction of the price ($175pp). This dining experience is a must-try! Bookings open at 10AM on the first Wednesday of every month, so be quick!

A beautiful evening spent celebrating my partners birthday. Honestly, the most thoughtful food we have had in Melbourne since dining in Michelin starred restaurants in Europe last year. Chef and his team are so talented, you can feel and taste how much passion goes into each of the courses presented.
Strongly recommended.
Thank you all so much for a wonderful evening. Already looking forward to our next visit!

Top notch fine dining restaurant in the west. We were greeted with great hospitality on arrival and also throughout the night. Feel welcomed by all the staff members including the head chef who came out personally to explain some of the menu items. Food was impeccable and we enjoyed our experience tremendously even though it was more than 3 hours long! Can’t wait for the next visit

Just finished lunch at Navi… words can’t describe the experience. Staff were unbelievable, the head chef was a legend and explained each dish, the food was off the charts and the drinks were top shelf. Terrific venue for a special occasion or a couple of quality drinks. Highly recommend. A hidden gem in the west!

Exceptional experience. Set an alarm when booking opens do whatever you can to get a sitting. Much better than what you can expect it to be. Must go!

This review is for Navi Lounge. We had the cocktail flight with matched bar snacks. This includes 5 unique cocktails matched with 5 delicious snacks. We sat at the bar for a few hours which was surprisingly very comfortable. The bartender was lovely and kept a nice pace between the different cocktails and snacks and explained each drink and it’s relevance to the food. We loved every bite of every little morsel we consumed. The cocktails were amazing also. Highly recommend this experience for something different.

It’s always hard to get a seat at this restaurant as when bookings open up they are taken up quickly. It can be tempting to let the disappointment of missing out make you wonder if it is worth it.

Well, it is. Recently dined with the larger set menu. There is not much point describing the dishes as most of them change depending on seasonality. What was apparent though was the creativity and love for each ingredient. The exemplar was a duck dish we dubbed duck four ways: four dishes prepared from duck served on a plate including thing shavings of very fatty duck melting into a crumpet. Superb!

The food is carried along by well polished and attentive service and a decent wine list.

Seats are limited and I would be grateful if you don’t go to this restaurant so I can get in more often.

Brilliant experience here for a special occasion. Admittedly it's pricey but definitely worth the wait in booking and actually going through their experience. The service is top notch and honestly the food is really interesting. Loved the non alcoholic pairing with the food as well personally as I was driving tonight. Highly recommend.

Lovely intimate dining experience. The food just kept coming! Most dishes were a 4/5 out of 5. All dishes were packed full of flavour and were super tasty.
Music was random but nice.
It can get a little loud so it’s difficult to hear what the waiters are saying when they are explaining the dishes.
We were pleasantly surprised when our waiter walked us out to the door, never had that kind of service before!

From the moment we walked into the restaurant it was like entering another world.we experienced a journey of taste; a magnitude of flavours and textures, a version of aesthetic art; food made with craftsmanship skills and a surrounding and feeling of intimacy; the decorum was elegant as we were seated in comfort, while being treated as special guests in the head chefs devine establishment. The talented head chef also took the time to greet and farewell us.and inbetween the professional and jovial staff guide us through a novel of unquie food courses. This is truely an experience not to be missed, if you only fine dine once in your life. Navi is the only destination.

Navi.thank you for a perfect evening with my beautiful sons.

My second visit to this little hidden gem! Food was delicious and flavour was incredible as always. Reasonable priced and it worth every single dollar. Will definitely be back for their new menu if I’m lucky enough to get a table!

One of my favourite fine dine restaurant in Melbourne! You can tell the chef create every dish with passion and love, they are all unique in their way. This is my second time in Navi, and never get enough of their food!

Also I ordered one of their non-alcoholic drink, mandarin, curry leaves, vanilla, is now my favourite drink! I was having second thought about curry leaves as beverage but it turns out really good and I had to order second glass!

Can’t wait for my next visit again.

Wow. Invited there with friends and impressed from entry to departure.
Started in the Cocktail bar with a vast array of options. Then into the dinning area with great affect to view kitchen.wow then the food.the degustation was a food experience that left me wanting nothing wine matching was done very well.congrats to the wait staff who are very good at their job.

After many failed attempts we secured an illusive Friday night booking at Navi. The 8 course degustation was closer to 12 plates of pure joy. We added the wine pairing and have to say it's the best dining experience I've had in Melbourne.

Despite unsuccessfully suppressing my high expectations, the food, wine and service were a real pleasure from this neighbourhood gem. I can't fathom how one creates the combinations of delicate ingredients put on show and the wine pairings complimented with such variety.

The service wasn't rushed and we enjoyed a very special evening. Thank you Navi, can't wait to return

I waited years to secure a booking here (partly my fault) and it was worth the wait. I would say this is a cultural food experience to an extent, and you need be a foodie as such to enjoy it. Service was great and the different food across the 8 course menu was delicious. The duck was quite easily our favourite and i could not compare it to any duck i have ever eaten before. Great job to the Navi team, highly recommend for foodie experience.