Stop 2: Mr. Miyagi - Artists' Lane

Text

Walking back onto Chapel Street and crossing the road, you’ll come across Mr Miyagi. Easy to miss, Mr Miyagi is a modern Japanese restaurant, where the Nori Taco ($12) can never go astray, no matter the time of day. The Miyagi Fried Chicken ($14-$20), a delicious spin-off of KFC’s chicken wings, is also finger lickin good.

Once you’ve devoured your Japanese bites, walk back onto Chapel Street and head towards High Street. Take a left when you come to Green Street, and then walk over to Artists’ Lane, which runs directly behind Mr Miyagi parallel to Chapel Street. Hopefully your belly will be relatively full, so you’ll have some fuel to spend a while wandering through this lane and admiring the many artworks which fill the walls. Featuring famous Melbourne street artists such as Presto (the junky project), Choq and Kaffeine, Artists’ lane incorporates an array of tags, murals, stencil artworks, and stickers to cater for everyone’s graffiti taste.

Be sure to check out the roller door of the Bendigo Bank. The texture of the door adds an interesting element to the artwork, which depicts different types of pigs and hogs in bright colours. The symbolism in this artwork also references the bank itself, whose logo is a piggy bank. Also see how many pieces from the Junky Project you can spot (creatures created from junk such as recycled cans and bottle tops).