The best gastropubs in Richmond right now

Richmond keeps a strong run of kitchen-pubs across Bridge Road and Swan Street, and this guide ranks the suburb's gastropubs by their Curateria Score and what reviewers keep saying on their most recent visits, with chains and far suburbs left out. This is a pub list by design, the rooms Richmond goes to for a parma, a steak night or a Sunday roast with a pint, and these are the ones locals actually name. Here is how they sit this month.

Top of the list is Royston Hotel, the pub reviewers rate at the top of the suburb for the parma and the roast, the chicken parma and a porterhouse steak beside a prawn chilli spaghetti, a wagyu beef Sunday roast and cheeseburger spring rolls. Corner Hotel follows, the pub reviewers come to for the parma and the steak, the parma and a pub steak beside a lamb salad with flatbread, gnocchi and a schnitzel.

Bridge Hotel is the pub reviewers rate for the parma and the Sunday roast, the chicken parma and a scotch fillet beside a Sunday roast beef, a steak sandwich with pepperonata and sharing plates. The Kingston is the pub reviewers come to for the steak night and the beef pie, the Wednesday 250g porterhouse steak night and a house-made beef pie with flaky pastry beside a Sunday roast, burrata with chilli oil and a pan-seared barramundi. All Nations Hotel is the pub reviewers rate for the scotch fillet and the pie, the scotch fillet steak and a lamb and rosemary pie beside a chicken parmigiana, bangers and mash and fettuccine with spicy meatballs.

Royal Hotel is the pub reviewers come to for the wood-fired pizza and a schnitzel, the wood-fired Margherita pizza and a pub-standard schnitzel beside a lentil burger. The Leadbeater Hotel is the pub reviewers rate for the parma and the trivia, the parmesan beside pool and a trivia night. Royal Saxon is the pub reviewers come to for the steak night and the parma, the Friday twenty-dollar steak night special and parma nights beside poke bowls, a falafel souvlaki, lemongrass fried chicken and a loaded garlic bread pull-apart.

The list closes across the suburb. Rising Sun Hotel Richmond is the pub reviewers rate for the Sunday roast and the hot pot, the Sunday roast of beef, lamb or sirloin and a Lancashire hot pot beside a veal parmesan and fried flathead. Royal Oak is the pub reviewers come to for the parma and the shanks, the chicken parma and lamb shanks beside a scotch fillet, salmon, a fisherman's basket and burgers. DT's Hotel is the pub reviewers rate for the cold beer and the bites, the cold beer and pub bites beside draught selections. And Mt View Hotel rounds it out, the pub reviewers come to for the steak sandwich and the parma, the steak sandwich and a porterhouse steak beside a beef brisket lasagna, a barramundi, a chicken parma and wedges.

If a pub night is the thread you want to pull, follow it across the city. There is a guide to the best gastropubs in Melbourne for the citywide picture, and a cross-cuisine tour of the best restaurants in Richmond for the rest of the suburb.

How we ranked it

Every pub here carries a Curateria Score built from its full review history, then weighted toward its most recent hundred reviews so the order reflects the room as it runs today, not as it ran two years ago. We hold the cohort to this one suburb and a tight inner-Melbourne radius, roughly 15km of the city, and we drop the multi-location chains and national franchises that trade on a logo more than a local following, so what is left reads as the genuine local order. Because a long-running room collects more reviews than a newcomer, we shrink the raw average toward the cohort mean for places with thin review counts, so a handful of glowing reviews cannot leapfrog a room a thousand diners have judged. For a gastropub page the cohort is the kitchen-pubs themselves, the rooms Richmond goes to for a parma, a steak night or a Sunday roast with a pint, so the order reads as the genuine local pub ranking rather than a broad restaurant list. The corpus is Victorian and scored; no AI writer ever reads it. The ranking is arithmetic; the words are ours.

Keep exploring

Explore more Gastropub in Richmond across Melbourne on Discover ->

Every venue here is ranked by its Curateria Score, a recent-review-weighted quality signal that leans on what diners are saying now, not years ago. Keep browsing Melbourne, sorted by Curateria Score, on Discover.

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