About Us
Prohibition Food & Wine is a restaurant and cocktail bar on Toorak Road, Camberwell, set inside the original Old State Bank building built in 1938. The bones of the building do a lot of the talking — the vault is now a private dining room, the main room carries the weight of the architecture, and the beer garden gives it somewhere to breathe.
The food is the work of Head Chef John Mu, a globally trained chef whose seasonal menu is built around sharing — small plates to large, passed around the table, with Modern Australian cooking shaped by deep East Asian influences. The drinks list holds its own: an extensive wine selection, craft beer, and cocktails worth making a night of.
This is Camberwell's local with a bit more going on.
John Mu — Head Chef
John Mu has cooked in some of the world's most demanding kitchens. His career spans Michelin-starred Hakkasan in New York City and Australia's most respected dining rooms: Vue de monde, Restaurant Lume, Matteo, and most recently as Head Chef of the 5-star Zagame's House. It's a resume built on discipline, precision, and an obsession with getting every detail right.
His approach at Prohibition is guided by a simple principle: fusion, not confusion. John's food is Modern Australian with deep East Asian influences — a reflection of his heritage and the years spent mastering the spice profiles and complex flavour layering that define the region's best cooking. Technique is never the point, but it's always present. Dry-ageing, precision temperature control, and an uncompromising eye for ingredient provenance are the foundations that let the food speak for itself.
What draws John to Prohibition is the same thing that drew him into cooking in the first place: the belief that exceptional food doesn't need to be inaccessible. His goal in Camberwell is straightforward — bring hatted-restaurant standards to the suburbs, without the pretension that usually comes with it.