How to eat your way around Queen Victoria Market
The Queen Vic Market has fed Melbourne for more than a century. Here is how to shop and eat there without wasting the trip, including the days it is closed.
The short answer: go early, go hungry, and go on a day it is actually open. Queen Victoria Market trades Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and is closed Mondays and Wednesdays. Start in the Deli Hall for a coffee and something to eat, then work the fresh produce and the specialty traders before the good stuff sells out.
The market, on the northern edge of the CBD, is one of the oldest and largest open-air markets in the southern hemisphere, and it is a working food market first and a tourist attraction second. That is the whole appeal.
When is Queen Victoria Market open?
The regular trading hours are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 6am to 3pm, Saturday from 6am to 4pm, and Sunday from 9am to 4pm. It is closed on Mondays and Wednesdays. Specialty shopping opens at 9am on every market day, so if you turn up at dawn you will find the fresh-produce and meat traders going but the specialty stalls still setting up.
The single most common mistake is arriving on a Monday or Wednesday to a closed market. Check the day before you make the trip; hours can also shift around public holidays.
Where should you start?
Start in the Deli Hall. It is the indoor heart of the market, lined with cheesemongers, smallgoods, delis and bakers, and it is the best place to assemble a picnic or just eat on the move. From there, the fresh-produce sheds are where locals actually shop: fruit and vegetables, seafood, and the meat and poultry hall, all at prices and quality that reward getting there earlier rather than later.
If you are there to eat rather than cook, graze. Buy a coffee, a pastry, some cheese and fruit, and take it to one of the market’s edges. The point is to sample widely rather than commit to one thing.
What about the Night Market?
Outside the daytime trade, Queen Victoria Market runs a separate Night Market on selected evenings during the warmer months, with food stalls, bars and live music. It is a different experience from the daytime food market, more street-food-and-a-drink than fresh produce. Because the Night Market runs to its own seasonal schedule, confirm the current dates on the market’s official site before planning an evening around it.
However you use it, treat the market as a place to shop and eat like a resident rather than a sight to tick off. Get there in the morning, bring cash as well as a card, and let the traders tell you what is good that day.