"You don't book Chae. You enter the draw and you pray." My friend in Melbourne said it while refreshing Instagram at seven on the first Monday of the month, watching the live lottery decide her next three months of dinners. Chae is the most coveted table in Victoria and one of the hardest in Australia: six seats, three nights a week, eighteen diners in total, set at one L-shaped table in chef Jung Eun Chae's house in Cockatoo, up in the Dandenong Ranges. The food is modern Korean, fermented almost entirely in-house. The booking is a monthly ballot.
How the Lottery Actually Works
Chae does not take normal reservations. You enter a ballot at chae.com.au, choosing your preferred dates and party size, and you may submit more than one entry as long as you do not enter the same session twice. On the first Monday of each month at 7pm Melbourne time, winners are drawn at random and the draw is streamed live on the restaurant's Instagram. If your name comes up, an invoice arrives immediately and you have one week to pay in full to lock the seat. Miss the payment window and the seat releases. There is no waitlist to refresh and no phone trick. Enter every month until you win. Our wider playbook on how to get impossible restaurant reservations covers ballot rooms like this one.
What It Costs and What You Eat
A seat at Chae is $145 per person with drinks included, which for the format is one of the better-value great meals in the country. The progression is cooked by Jung Eun Chae and her partner Yoora Yoon, built on doenjang, gochujang, and ganjang the kitchen ferments and ages on site. The banchan course opens it, the doenjang-braised lamb is the dish people travel for, and the hodutgwaja, walnut cakes, close it. Everything arrives at the one shared table, which makes the night feel like dinner in a very precise friend's home. The full Chae review and scores has the rest of the menu.
Jung Eun Chae won the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival Trailblazer Award, and the room has drawn national acclaim for its fermentation work. With eighteen seats a week, demand vastly outruns supply, which is the entire reason for the ballot.
Getting There
Cockatoo is about seventy minutes by car from central Melbourne, deep in the Dandenong Ranges, so a seat at Chae is an evening's commitment rather than a casual booking. Plan the drive, sort a designated driver or a stay nearby, and treat it as the event it is. Seatings are early by city standards, which suits the trip home.
Not For
Not for spontaneous plans or anyone wanting a city-centre table. Cockatoo is an hour out, seats release only by monthly ballot, and winners must pay in full within a week of the draw.
If You Cannot Win the Ballot
While you wait out the lottery, Melbourne has tables you can actually book. Attica, Ben Shewry's long-running Ripponlea room, is the city's benchmark tasting menu. Amaru in Armadale and Aru in the CBD both run ambitious tasting formats with normal reservations. The full Melbourne dining guide maps the rest by occasion, and Chae's place among the world's toughest seats is in the Top 50 hardest reservations worldwide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the Chae booking lottery work?
Chae uses a monthly ballot rather than normal reservations. You enter at chae.com.au with your preferred dates and party size, and multiple entries are allowed as long as they are for different sessions. Winners are drawn at random on the first Monday of each month at 7pm, streamed live on Instagram. Winners receive an invoice immediately and have one week to pay in full before the seat releases.
How much does Chae cost?
A seat at Chae is $145 per person with drinks included, which is strong value for a meal of this ambition. The figure covers the full set menu and beverages, cooked by Jung Eun Chae and Yoora Yoon at a single shared table. Because seats are won by ballot and paid in advance, there is no tipping scramble or surprise bill on the night. Payment is due within a week of winning the draw.
Where is Chae and how far is it from Melbourne?
Chae is in Cockatoo, in the Dandenong Ranges, roughly seventy minutes by car from central Melbourne. It is set in chef Jung Eun Chae's own house, with one L-shaped table seating six per service. Because of the distance, plan transport in advance and consider staying nearby. The drive is part of why a seat here feels like an occasion rather than a casual dinner out, so build the evening around it.
What do you eat at Chae?
Chae serves a single set menu of modern Korean cooking built on house-fermented doenjang, gochujang, and ganjang. The meal opens with a banchan course, centres on a doenjang-braised lamb that diners travel for, and closes with hodutgwaja, traditional walnut cakes. Everything is fermented and aged on site, and the menu shifts with the seasons. Flag any dietary needs when you accept your invoice, not on the night.
Is Chae worth it?
Chae is worth the effort for anyone serious about Korean food or fermentation. At $145 with drinks it is excellent value, the cooking has earned Jung Eun Chae a Trailblazer Award and national acclaim, and the single-table format is genuinely unlike a restaurant. The cost is logistical: a monthly ballot and an hour's drive each way. We score it 9.0 out of 10.