Flower Drum has been Melbourne's finest Cantonese restaurant since it opened in 1975, and its combination of exceptional food and old-school formality makes it unlike anywhere else in the city. The dining room on the first floor of a narrow Market Lane building is warm and unhurried; the service is polished without being stiff. The Peking duck, served in the classical manner with pancakes, is the signature dish, and the barbecue meats and stir-fried greens are handled with equal precision.
Reservations are essential — the restaurant is often booked weeks in advance. Prices reflect the quality and the occasion; this is not a cheap eat but a proper special-occasion restaurant. Dress reasonably well. The contrast between the intimate dining room upstairs and the teeming Chinatown street below it is part of the pleasure.