delicious.100: Sarti is one of Melbourne’s best restaurants

Sarti is a place where Italian accents ricochet around the room, where waiters sling napkins over their shoulder and where aromas waft from the kitchen.

Sarti’s tiramisu. Pictures: Andrew Henshaw

PUSH open the bright red doors of this ristorante, climb the stairs and you are in a place where Italian accents ricochet around the room, where waiters sling napkins over their shoulder and where roasting aromas waft from the kitchen.

The place is Sarti. Joe Mammone is your attentive host and Paolo Masciopinto is working the pans. Both are guiding this smartly designed ristorante into a new era where it can stand alongside the city’s better Italian restaurants.

A big bar anchors Sarti at one end. A rooftop terrace beckons at the other. But to really enjoy the Latin fare served here, you want to be on a banquette — preferably armed with a Peroni or a flinty Italian white from Sarti’s plentiful cellar.

Masciopinto faithfully renders Italian classics, then gives them an elegant twist. His tonna crudo with avocado puree and white bean skin is an intriguing take on tuna tartare, while prettily plated black ink pasta with blue swimmer crab (spaghetti alla chitarra) tingles pleasingly with chilli.

Squid ink pasta.

Pancetta-wrapped pork tenderloin.

Then there’s the mauve cabbage gazpacho that attends plinths of pancetta-wrapped pork tenderloin. Even Sarti’s tiramisu toys with tradition, layering coffee jelly under savoiardi biscuit, choc chips, mascarpone and a frothy crown of zabaione.

Must eat dish: tiramisu

SARTI

6 Russell Place (off Little Collins St), city.

Ph: 9639 7822

sartirestaurant.com.au

Cuisine: Italian

Chef: Paolo Masciopinto

Price: between $41 and $80 a person for two courses, food only

Bookings: yes

Open: Mon-Fri noon-3pm, Mon-Sat 6pm-10.30pm

Instagram: @sartirestaurant

This restaurant was ranked the 86th best restaurant in Victoria in the 2016 edition of the delicious.100.