Wunderkammer is a retail store, so packed full of treasures that it feels like a natural history museum. Wonderful for browsing, Wunderkammer stocks medical and scientific instruments, crystals, rocks and other specimens.

My favourite commercial gallery in Melbourne, Utopian Slumps represents a group of early to mid career Australian and New Zealand artists. Exhibitions are always intriguing and the opening nights are great for people watching.

Fresh is best. The best place in Melbourne for fresh cheese. The Buffalo Mozzarella and the creamy Ricotta are to die for. I used to have to wait years and fly half way across the globe to my home in Italy just to bite into one of these creamy morsels of goodness. Now my life can be defined by the ‘pre La Latteria period’ and the ‘post La Latteria period’.

Gertrude Street is in the inner northern suburb of Fitzroy, Melbourne. In just one strip, you'll find bars, restaurants, galleries, boutiques, vintage wares, costume hire and old-school pubs. It's an inspiring, quiet and interesting experience just out of the city centre. Overall a great place to spend the day.

The Everleigh is a sumptuous bar hidden above a busy shopping street. A perfect place to share a leather booth with friends, while drinking gin cocktails from old-fashioned crystal glasses.