The Hill Restaurant & Bar

The Hill Restaurant & Bar is Berwick's big, easy family restaurant inside Parkhill Plaza on Parkhill Drive, doing wood-fired pizzas, char-grilled favourites and shareable seasonal plates from a menu that is built for sharing. It is casual rather than fine dining, the kind of room that handles weeknight dinners and birthday tables with equal ease, and dogs are welcome at the outdoor seating.

The dog setup

Dogs sit with you in the outdoor area, which is a covered, sheltered courtyard rather than an exposed footpath strip, so the weather is less of a gamble than at most suburban restaurants. They are not permitted inside the main dining room. Staff are friendly about dogs, but water bowl availability varies, so a portable bowl is worth packing. Keep your dog on lead and settled within the outdoor dining boundary, as Victorian outdoor dining rules expect.

Worth knowing

The kitchen leans generous: char-grilled octopus, BBQ pork ribs with mash, sticky rib bites and a family share board, plus a signature cocktail list at the bar and a private function room out the back. It is a proper sit-down dinner option rather than a quick coffee stop, and tables can be reserved online.

Getting there and parking

The restaurant sits inside Parkhill Plaza Shopping Centre, so parking is ample and free and the access from the car park is flat and straightforward with a dog in tow.

Close by with the dogs

Pioneers Park is close by for a walk before dinner, and Wilson Botanic Park is the bigger outing around the water, on lead throughout. Inside the botanic park itself, Gather Food Coffee & Co does post-walk coffee with outdoor tables.

More options are on the Victoria dog friendly restaurants guide and the Berwick destination page.

Pepsi: the covered courtyard means dinner plans survive a Melbourne sky doing something dramatic. Bring a bowl, because water runs on staff goodwill rather than a guarantee.