Philip Mallis
Grand Slam Oval & the Food Village
Real Melbourne restaurants, not stadium catering — plus the city's own 130-year-old soft serve
The Grand Slam Oval sits at the center of the Melbourne Park precinct, a big open lawn ringed by big screens showing live matches, and it's as much a food destination as a place to watch tennis for free. Melbourne takes its restaurant scene seriously, and the Australian Open leans into that rather than settling for standard stadium concessions — the food lineup changes most years but consistently pulls in genuine Melbourne restaurants rather than generic caterers.
Shake Shack made its Australian debut at the tournament, serving its signature Shack Burger — griddled Angus beef, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and Shack Sauce on a buttered potato bun — alongside an Open-exclusive milkshake flavor. It's the kind of import that draws a genuine queue on a hot afternoon. Entrecôte, a Prahran French brasserie, built its Open reputation on a AU$27.50 steak sandwich that consistently sells out and gets talked about more than most of the tournament's actual food lineup. See live rating and reviews on Google Maps For something distinctly local, look for the Peach Melbourne soft serve — peach, raspberry, and vanilla soft serve riffing on the 1890s Peach Melba dessert Escoffier created for Dame Nellie Melba, a genuinely Melbourne-specific dessert rather than a tennis-branded gimmick.
The vendor list rotates: recent years have added Vietnamese fried chicken from Season, Singaporean-Malaysian small plates from Ho Jiak (prawn toast with molten salted duck egg, spiced pork jowl rolls) See live rating and reviews on Google Maps, Italian pizza by the slice from D.O.C., and Greek souvlaki from Melbourne institution Stalactites See live rating and reviews on Google Maps. None of these are Open-only pop-ups pretending to be restaurants — they're real Melbourne kitchens setting up a second location for three weeks.
Prices sit well above a regular Melbourne lunch, which is standard for any major sporting event, but the quality bar is real: this isn't a food court, it's closer to a rotating festival of some of the city's better casual restaurants, condensed onto one lawn.
AO Reserve's adjacent premium dining spaces give a useful sense of the ceiling above Grand Slam Oval's walk-up vendors: Champions Rooftop with chef Peter Gilmore runs from around AU$530 per person, and On-Court by Piper-Heidsieck, the most premium published tier, runs from AU$2,500 per person including a chauffeur service. Grand Slam Oval itself sits nowhere near that price bracket, which is part of the point — it's the accessible, walk-up version of the same instinct to bring in genuinely good food rather than standard stadium catering, just without the reservation or the four-figure price tag.
Why it's special
Most Grand Slam food operations exist to extract money from a captive crowd. The Grand Slam Oval does that too, but it does it by actually importing good restaurants rather than slapping a tournament logo on mediocre catering. Shake Shack chose Melbourne Park for its Australian debut, not a mall or a standalone store — that's a real signal about how seriously the Open treats this part of the experience. I'd argue the food here tells you more about Melbourne's food culture than most CBD lunch spots do, because it's a curated sample of what local operators think is worth putting their name on in front of a few hundred thousand visitors. The Peach Melbourne soft serve in particular is the one dish I'd actively steer a first-timer toward: it's specific to this city, has a real 130-year-old story behind it, and costs a fraction of the imported-brand options nearby.
Insider tips
- 1
Entrecôte's steak sandwich regularly sells out by mid-afternoon on big match days — go early if it's the one thing on your list.
- 2
The food vendor lineup changes most years, so check the current year's list on ausopen.com or the AO app before you arrive rather than assuming a past favorite is back.
- 3
Grand Slam Oval's big screens mean you can eat while watching a live match without holding a ticket to any specific court — useful if you're on a grounds pass and want a break from court-hopping.
Practical info
- Hours
- Open throughout the day and evening session hours, typically from gates-open (around 10am) through the end of night session play
- Cost
- Individual dishes typically run AU$15-30; Entrecôte's steak sandwich is AU$27.50 — premium chef takeovers in adjacent venues (Club 1905, AO Glasshouse) run considerably higher, from roughly AU$1,260 per person for special multi-course experiences
- Access
- No booking required for Grand Slam Oval's food stalls — walk-up only, included with any tournament ticket type (grounds pass or higher). Premium dining experiences in adjacent spaces like Club 1905 require separate advance booking.
- Getting there
- Grand Slam Oval is at the heart of the Melbourne Park precinct, reached the same way as the main arenas: a 5-10 minute walk from Flinders Street Station via Batman Avenue, or from Jolimont Station on the Hurstbridge/Mernda lines. Trams 70 and 75 stop nearby on Flinders Street and Wellington Parade.
- Address
- Grand Slam Oval, Melbourne Park, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
- Website
- ausopen.com/whats-on
What to avoid
Don't expect Wimbledon-style strawberries and cream as an AO tradition — that's a different tournament's signature food entirely, and looking for it here will lead nowhere. Avoid planning a sit-down meal here during peak lunch hours on a big-name match day — seating around the Oval fills fast and most of the queue-worthy vendors move slowly precisely because the food is made fresh, not reheated.
