A few years ago I had a registry wedding at the Old Treasury Building in Melbourne, Australia. It’s a cheap and visually attractive option but as a very old government building, it gets a C- score on accessibility. The only way to get in is via a long flight of stairs or a confusing back entrance. I decided to add on an additional celebration with my friends with a nice dinner.

This meant embarking on the age old quest of finding a fully accessible venue for people with different kinds of disabilities.

• It needed to be quiet, for people who are hard of hearing or with sensory processing disabilities
• It needed to be easy to find and navigate, with a screen readable menu for people who are blind
• It needed to be on ground floor or have a lift if it wasn’t, and it needed to have a wheelchair accessible toilet, for people who used wheelchairs

Those were the access requirements of my invite list (yours may differ).

Researching accessible restaurants isn’t very easy. Many restaurants provide plenty of information about their opening hours, location, menu offerings, but very little information about what kind of entrances, toilets and sound dampening they have. This meant that I had to call up lots of places to ask them for all their missing information, or visit them in person to check out the premises for myself.

I ended up with three options:

• Annam, which could seat a large group for a good price per head. It had an accessible toilet, a very chill ambience that wasn’t too noisy, but it had a tiny step up the threshold.
• Longrain, which could also seat a large group for a bit more money. It was physically accessible, but also very popular and thus very noisy.
• MoVida Aqui, which had a section in the back for large groups, which meant there was a small amount of sound insulation, as well as very clear information about the presence of accessible toilets.

I was also really interested in Sunda, which had communal tables, good physical access, tasty food, but it was beyond my budget unfortunately.

I ended up going with MoVida Aqui, which is why it’s this blog post’s featured restaurant.

Chrissy had this to say about the dinner:

“MoVida Aqui was really good. The lift was easy to find, and there was good signage as well. The fact that you provided accessibility information in the dinner invitation signalled that you wanted me there. I loved that we had all kinds of disabilities around the table, just effortlessly being there and enjoying each other’s company. It took away the emotional effort because I could just rock up and trust that I would be okay. It’s really comforting to have the ability to let go and enjoy the night with friends.”

Featured restaurant: MoVida Aqui

Address: NAB building, 1, 500 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000

Opening hours: 12 noon to 10:30pm on Tuesdays to Fridays, 6pm to 10:30pm Saturdays, and closed on Sundays and Mondays. More updated opening hours can be found on their website.

Getting there: Here are some instructions for how to get to MoVida Aqui.

• If you start from Flagstaff Station (corner of William and LaTrobe), walk up towards the magistrates and county courts.
• Turn left at Little Bourke Street. The NAB building is the third building on the right when travelling down Little Bourke.
• The restaurant is on the first floor of the back of the NAB building. Once you pass a tiny lane and a carpark entry there will be a set of stairs leading up to level 1.
• Once you’re up go past the taco place on the right and MoVida Aqui will be at the end of the pathway.
• There’s also another set of stairs next to MoVida Aqui and that goes down to another laneway.
• I am assured that there is a lift by Trip Advisor. It’s under the stairs that go up from Little Bourke.

I’ve also discovered that you can go all the way up the stairs and into MoVida Aqui via Google Maps if you want to check out the place before going there in person.

Physical access:

There is a lift and two sets of stairs up to the first floor where MoVida Aqui is. There is also an accessible toilet.

Information access:

The MoVida Aqui website has contact details as well as menus in PDF format.

If you get the degustation menu, the waitstaff tell you what dish you’re getting verbally as the dishes arrive. This might be a problem if you have hearing loss and you want to know what you’re eating.

Sensory access:

MoVida Aqui is a popular restaurant so it can get a bit noisy sometimes. There is a section at the back of the restaurant for large groups that is a bit more protected from the background noise. The night time lighting in the restaurant is dim.

Do you have something to add? Let us know through the form below.