United Places Botanic Gardens: Melbourne's newest boutique hotel atop the Matilda eatery in South Yarra

When Darren Rubenstein, a Melbourne property developer, formed a united front with Scott Pickett, one of the city's leading chefs and restaurateurs, the result was a case of Upstairs Downstairs meets the uber-hip set.

Upstairs is Rubenstein's fledgling United Places, a chic, no-expense-spared small hotel, of sorts, billed as "a new concept in boutique accommodation", while downstairs there's Pickett's Matilda restaurant with dishes cooked over an open fire and hot coals.

The heftily-tariffed 12-suite establishment, inside a new, discreetly-modern building, recently opened on fashionable Domain Road, South Yarra, directly opposite the Botanic Gardens, about five kilometres from Melbourne's CBD.

On arrival at United Places Botanic Gardens, as it's more formerly known, a butler greets guests inside the hotel's long, narrow and reception-free dark metal screen and board-marked concrete entrance.

The corridor is designed as a tribute to Melbourne's legendary laneways and from there guests are ushered to the hip designer furniture-festooned rooms.

Inside are plush, auto-operated velvet curtains, fine French bed linen, exclusive toiletries by Le Labo and a bottle of Tasmania's internationally-lauded Sullivan's Cove whisky as part of the minibar offering.

Downstairs, meanwhile, in the discreetly modern three-storey building, is Pickett's edgy Matilda restaurant – one of Melbourne's hottest new eateries in every sense – named not after the famed ballad but the chef's young daughter.