NOW EXPERIENCING:Hacienda

Read time 3 Mins

Posted 04 Apr 2025

By
Pat Nourse


The entrance to Hacienda in Melbourne

Southbank might be the last place you’d look for great Mexican – until now. This restaurant-bar turns out seriously delicious, punchy eats while slinging top-notch cocktails.

Hacienda in Melbourne is one of the city's best Mexican restaurants
Why you goHacienda is an enigma wrapped in a tortilla. Is it a cafe, a sports bar, a tourist haunt, or one of Australia’s most promising Mexican restaurants? Well, it’s sort of all of those things. It’s in a shopping centre up an escalator on one of the most touristy parts of the Southbank foreshore. It’s the sort of place that talks up its $10 pints of Guinness and its Grand Prix screens on the one hand, but on the other, it’s also home to some of the best and most interesting Mexican food in the country, cooked by a chef who has clocked serious flying-hours in some of Mexico’s top restaurants. Our advice? Dive in, embrace the incongruity, order a Spicy Marg and make the most of it – whatever else is going on, Hacienda is seriously delicious and the drinks are ace. 
Why you stayIn a word: the food, the food, the food. The drinks land at a consistent B+, shading into a solid A on a good day, and they’re a drawcard in themselves, but the food is really something, and the reason you’ll keep coming back. Chef Ross McCombe worked at the very top of fine dining in Mexico for seven years, at Quintonil and La Docena – two spots that are right up there in the global conversation about ambitious Mexican food. But while Quintonil, for one, is a regular at the top of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, the vibe at Hacienda is much, much more casual. You can order a tasting menu if you want, but you can also roll in for some tacos and cold beers on the balcony, and it’s a win either way. 
Some of the dishes and drinks on offer at Hacienda in Melbourne
Making cocktails at Hacienda in Melbourne
What drink to orderThey’ve really made an effort here for you to not just lean back on your old Mexican faves of Margaritas, crisp lagers and sippin’ tequilas and mezcals. The Tepache Sour uses a house-made tepache – that’s a refreshing ferment made from pineapple skins – to bring the tang to a mix of mezcal and lime, while the Torito, a trad drink from the state of Veracruz, is a creamy rum punch enriched by caramel. The beer list is broader than just the Mexican classics without being especially flash, so you’ve got your Coronas, Negra Modelos, Victorias and Pacificos, plus Kirin Ichiban, Stone & Wood and Guinness on tap. In other words, perfectly serviceable, but not the place to come if you’re looking for a smoked dunkelweizen or an obscure hop monster. Wine lands in about the same zone – serviceable rather than a feature. Long story short, if you want a cocktail with a bit of an adventurous streak, order with the confidence that these guys know their stuff. And there are 20 tequilas, 20 mezcals and a handful of other agave spirits to choose from. But if you also just want to pop the top on a cold, not particularly complicated beer, or maybe get around a well-made Marg, you’re gonna find what you want here, too.
What to eatWe’ve got some must-orders, mostly up the smaller end of the menu. Tacos loaded with incredibly flavoursome crunchy bits of Western Plains pork and pico de gallo salsa: a must. Grilled corn with fresh cheese and chilli like you’ve never seen it done so well: a must. A skewer threaded with fall-apart tender slices of citrus-drenched grilled octopus: a must. And given that La Docena, one of chef Ross’s Mexican ports of call, is so famed for its seafood, pretty much the whole raw bar is a must. Oysters with black lime and sesame? Crab tostadas? Tuna tartare with chipotle chilli and avocado? Aguachile – raw mixed seafood in a properly spicy dressing of habaneros, green mango and lime? Yes, yes and hell yes. 
Melbourne's Hacienda serves up some of the best Mexcian food in Australia