Impressions of the Qantas First Lounge in Melbourne Australia

I recently travelled to the Qantas First Lounge in Melbourne, Australia and wanted to provide some first impressions of this lounge space, as I had never visited before.

Entering the Qantas First Lounge Melbourne

Entering the Qantas First Lounge Melbourne is pretty straightforward – you either need to be flying First Class on a oneworld carrier, or be a oneworld Emerald elite member traveling in any class of service.

This lounge is the highest-category lounge at Melbourne airport for oneworld guests, and the nearby Business Lounge offers access to business class customers as well as oneworld Sapphire members.

Amenities

I didn’t spend terribly long in the lounge, but there were several amenities on offer, including:

My Experience at the Qantas First Lounge Melbourne

I only experienced the dining portion of the lounge, which, in my opinion, definitely needed some work. When you enter the lounge, there are essentially 2 distinct areas – a seating section, great for relaxing or getting work done, and a true dining area with tables laid out surrounding server workstations.

Qantas rotates the menu in these lounges seasonally, and the food is inspired by Neil Perry, a famed Australian chef that leads all of the lounge and onboard food projects. Having visited many of the Qantas domestic and international lounges before, including one of Neil’s restaurants in Sydney, I can personally attest to how great a chef he is, though I know many frequent flyers don’t like his cooking style. I believe Qantas has some of the best airline catering.

At the time I visited, this restaurant section was filled, but fortunately, you could sit anywhere in the lounge and enjoy the same food and service – or so I thought.

Sitting on a nearby couch, I wasn’t proactively approached and had to request a menu and order. Wanting a bit more to eat and drink, it was almost impossible to catch any server’s attention as they were mostly focused on the restaurant section and not offering the same level of attentiveness to the seating area.

I did manage to enjoy a Coke Zero as well as a pasta bolognese, but I thought the food was just average, not up to the standard I’ve experienced in Sydney’s same Qantas First Lounge.

Bottom Line

The Melbourne Qantas First lounge is one of the newest Qantas lounges to open post-pandemic, so perhaps they are just getting back into the swing of things and are low on staff, but I thought it was worth mentioning just in case you intend on visiting anytime soon.