Member Review by melbourne_muncher

I often have family and friends visit from overseas and I’m constantly searching for great places to take them. Riva is exactly the kind of restaurant to take a visitor to Melbourne- it has broadly appealing food, pleasant service and is set amongst the yachts at the St Kilda Marina. The day we visited was sunny and gorgeous and we sat out on the deck to have lunch and admire the water. The menu is pretty much what you would expect from a modern restaurant- entrees included pan-seared scallops & roasted king prawn ($17.50) and an antipasto plate for two ($16.50) and the mains included grilled porterhouse steak with gratin dauphinoise, honey mustard and red wine reduction ($29.90) and seafood linguine ($23.90).

My selections were exactly what I felt like on a warm day, an aged hopkins river beef carpaccio, which, for the uninitiated, were superb slices of tender raw beef drizzled in olive oil and served with a persian fetta crostino ($16.90). For main I had an entr?e serve of the fantastic fried calamari, which were small, very tender rings of calamari served with a wasabi mayo ($15.90). Instead of dessert, we opted to share the generous and yummy selection of Australian cheeses served with walnut bread ($15.90)

All in all lunch at Riva was a perfectly pleasant experience and somewhere to drag all of those camera clicking relos to show off this gorgeous city.