The Lion & Wombat – St Kilda

A haven for the British ex-pat community, ‘The Lion & Wombat’ at the bottom of Grey Street in St Kilda is a must-visit for lunch, dinner or just drinks.

Quite frankly, we cannot believe it has taken us this long to visit St Kilda’s ‘The Lion & Wombat’. While it only opened in late-2023, it has been earning rave reviews ever since as Melbourne’s pre-eminent British-Australian pub/restaurant.

What brought BRITlist to The Lion & Wombat for their debut visit was twofold - the promise of a top-quality Sunday roast and chef-made Scotch eggs. With an early-afternoon Sunday booking confirmed (you can’t afford the of risk them running out of roasts), off we went with high expectations.

British group on the sofas next to us, obligatory Union flag on the wall and British serving staff. All this place needs now is a board of Scampi Fries behind the bar.

While our visit occured on a particularly hot day in the middle of summer, this was not to deter us from following-through on our desire to order their Sunday roast offering, Two roast beef dinners ordered with a Scotch egg to share as a starter, we sat back in anticipation while enjoying an apple cider (me) and lemonade (my daughter). It wasn’t long before curiousity got the better of us and we decided to explore the venue. A little reccy before our Sunday delights appear.

Plenty of drinks on offer here, including Guinness on tap.

The sun deck at the rear of The Lion & Wombat is a beautiful place to enjoy your meal or just a couple of drinks on a sunny afternoon,

The bar area opens out onto the sun deck giving the venue a truly open and airy feel.

Returning to our table after checking out the bar area and sun deck, we we’re promptly presented with our Scotch egg served with English mustard. As previously stated, these are chef-made and quite simply delicious. I’ve had a couple of shop-bought Scotch eggs over here as part of my BRITlist research, but this baby knocks them all out of the park. They say that ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ so to stop this article from blowing out, just take a look at this…

The photography here is only superseded by the taste of this egg-and-sausage-meat triumph.

This starter didn’t last long with two of us feverishly gobbling up the deep-fried delicacy. Just a small but exquisite snack ahead of our main course. Needless to say we did not want to ruin our appetite for the main event. Two roast beef dinners with a side order of pigs in blankets. And why not? When in Rome, as they say!

As we see our plates approaching, we know we’re in for a real treat. Perfectly presented with a sizeable Yorkshire pudding in tow, the Sunday roast looked like a masterpiece in the eyes of this hungry Lancastrian.

The beef was perfectly cooked, succulently tender and mind-blowingly tasty. The rest of the team was made up of roasties, garden peas, Yorkshire pudding, carrots and gravy.

In terms of a favourite Sunday roast in and around Melbourne, I believe that we have a new BRITlist favourite. Yes, The Lion & Wombat have taken the top-spot with this crowd-pleasing offering. Everything on this plate was fresh, perfectly-cooked and next-level tasty. The option of ordering a side of pigs in blankets was just the cherry on the cake.

Usually reserved to a Christmas speciality in this Editor’s household, exceptions were made and a plate of pigs in blankets were ordered as the perfect roast accompaniment.

While we visited The Lion & Wombat primarily for the food, this is clearly a place that’s not exclusively reserved for diners. Without a doubt, this is an excellent choice as a place to come for drinks with friends at the weekend or after-work with colleagues. The bar itself is long enough to seat 10 people and there’s plenty of stools, seats and tables for social drinks. It’s worth pointing out at this juncture that they have happy hour specials from 3pm-6pm on Wednesday through Fridays.

Nicely priced happy hour drinks will tempt BRITlist back for a weekday visit.

While it may have taken us longer than expected to visit The Lion & Wombat, we can say in all honesty that it was definitely worth the wait. Top notch food with a great atmosphere and ambience in a modern and tasteful setting.

 

The Lion & Wombat, 107 Grey Street, St Kilda, VIC 3182