David's
Tucked into a Cecil Place corner in Prahran, this warm southside room makes a quiet case for a Shanghai rarely seen on Melbourne menus. Where the city's Chinese dining has long leaned Cantonese, the kitchen here looks instead to the founder's home region, Zhouzhuang, a canal town on the outskirts of Shanghai, and cooks the honest, homely food usually kept for locals. That means simple dishes carrying depth from soy, sugar, ginger and the occasional whole chilli, rather than showmanship: rustic, affordable, family-style cooking built around the table. Dumplings are a natural starting point, from delicate steamed parcels to pan-fried pork and chive, and the weekends bring an unlimited yum cha service running to more than a dozen varieties, a southside answer to the trek across town for Sunday trolleys. Open since the late 1990s, it has settled into the role of neighbourhood institution: unfussy, generous and geared to lively gatherings, with banquet menus and private space for larger groups. The appeal is consistency and warmth rather than novelty, a place that treats regional Chinese home cooking as something worth serving plainly and well.