Central Club Hotel - North Melbourne — Restaurant in Melbourne

A deliciously unfortunate experience is how I’d have to describe my dinner visit at this venue.

The good - the food was really good, executed well with clean and crisp flavours. Well presented and efficiently done from the kitchen.

The interior is really well appointed and looks great. The drinks were good too with the XPA, Lil Juicy and Lager all tasty and clean.

The bad - music was pretty loud to a point where we had to move tables. Nothing to do with our experience but food a lot of food was sitting up at the pass for 5-10 min at a time. Not a good look when fellow tables are looking around for their food.

The ugly - our experience with our rather theatrical waiter (I hope for the sake of this venue he isn’t in management) was extremely overbearing from the start. Continual interruptions, cutting into conversations to provide ill-timed menu advice made us rather uncomfortable. Example being, after a drink order, rather than making it, coming back and then explaining a component of the menu, we were interrupted multiple times before the drink was made. Delivery of said drink was a further interruption. It literally felt like the waiter was an unwelcome fourth seat on our table of three.

I proceeded to pay for the meal for my guests, covertly coming to the bar, as a surprise. Without any awareness of guest or situation, the waiter came over to announce what had been paid. Firstly in poor taste to begin with and secondly ruined the gesture and atmosphere of the dinner.

I know this is a new venue and teething problems occur, but excessively pushing your personality without considering or reading the room is not a good look. I live around the corner and will never come here again after this experience.

A dessert was comped, which I am sure was an insistence of the other staff member who seemed to read the the room much better.

Without this experience with this waiter, it would have...

A stay at Central Club Hotel followed business trip in Melbourne. Limited accomodation options available due to the Melbourne Grand Prix. Very handy location, just across the road from Queen Victoria Market. ||Very warm and friendly check in at front bar, including free glass of selected tap beer. The hotel offers 10% off drinks and meals to accomodation guests.||Accomodation rooms are located upstairs from the bar and dining area, typical of older style hotels. Room was clean but very basic. There is no air conditioning however a good pedestal fan and a fan heater are provided.||Bathroom facilities are shared (separate male and female rooms), something I had missed during the online booking process. Bathroom was ok and cleaned daily however relies on the cleanliness of those using it (found used chewing gum left by another user). There is water damage to wooden furnishing in male showers, new pipework has been installed to replace the original pipes. Bring thongs to wear in showers. ||Bath towel, floor mat and face towel are provided. Soap and shampoo were not provided in room, and bottles left on floor of shower were empty. Luckily I always carry spare just in case. ||My room was located near an exhaust fan outlet (possibly from commercial kitchen) which unfortunately ran 24/7 creating constant noise. I also reported a chirping smoke alarm located in another room it area, likely due to low battery. ||The pub downstairs closes at 11pm, and though noise can be heated (patrons and live music) this was not an issue, particularly after closing time at 11pm. ||Simple accomodation, great location across the road from Queen Victoria Market, very friendly and helpful staff - be prepared from shared use...

Update 16 May 2025 - added photo of magerita

Update 16 June 2023 - added more photos from our most recent visit.

Fully renovated and back in action!

The Central Club Hotel is now back and not only does it look amazing, the food and service top notch.

After a long wait, the Central Club has been fully renovated and is a much nicer and classier space. The interiors are really very nice and create a comfy welcoming atmosphere inside.

There is a new menu and a special kids menu. From the new menu, we tried the crab pasta and the chicken parma. I didn't get to try the crab pasta myself but it was very good according to the person that ordered it. The chicken parma was great. The salad was fresh and crisp and had just the right amount of dressing on it. The chips were hot, crunchy, seasoned perfectly and not at all soggy. The chicken parma itself was spectacular. There was just the right combination of the napoli sauce, ham and cheese spread over the top of the chicken. There is something special about the chicken that made it taste slightly different to other parmas that I have had. The parma was so good that the small person that I shared the parma with almost ate the adult size himself. We also ordered some drinks from the bar and they arrived promptly with no issue.

The service for us was really good. Our waiter was attentive and friendly. I'm really very happy to report that some of the old staff have returned which really makes it feel more part of the community.

Overall, we are very happy that the pub is back and there are still a lot of items on the menu that we are looking forward to trying.

Welcome back and we'll see you...