Carlton is Melbourne's Italian quarter, a neighbourhood shaped by the wave of post-war migration that turned Lygon Street into one of Australia's most famous eating strips. The restaurants and gelato shops are still there — some of them tourist traps, others genuinely good — and on a warm evening the pavement tables fill up from Grattan Street all the way to Elgin Street. The named intersection of Lygon and Grattan, Borsari's Corner, marks the symbolic heart of the strip.
Beyond the food, Carlton has the University of Melbourne campus, the Melbourne Museum (one of Australia's best natural history collections), and the Royal Exhibition Building in the Carlton Gardens — the only building in Australia with UNESCO World Heritage status. The gardens themselves are beautiful and make a good place to recover from a long lunch on Lygon Street. Theatre, comedy and politics all have deep roots here too: La Mama Theatre launched the country's new-wave playwrights from a tiny Faraday Street shed, and the Victorian Trades Hall at the southern edge of the suburb is the oldest continuously operating union HQ in the world.
The suburb sits just north of the CBD, an easy walk or tram ride from the centre. It has a student-quarter energy during term time and a quieter, residential feel on weekends.