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

NEIL Perry’s grande Southbank signorina hits high notes with a decadent dining room, an expansive cellar and food that remains a celebration of region.

The pasta at Rosetta is something to behold.

NEIL Perry’s grande Southbank signorina still hits all those high notes: the room that’s like the love child of Dean Martin and Maria Callas remains comfortably plush, the expansive Italian cellar remains a labour of love, and the food remains a celebration of region and produce that’s Perry’s signature.

But now, more so than ever, pasta is something to behold, thanks to a dedicated “La Sfoglina”, hand pressing the orecchiette that’s tossed through garlic, anchovy and broccoli; folding the precious little pockets of agnolotti filled with veal and rabbit, and making the chestnut-flour gnocchi that then comes swimming in burnt butter to deliver a lesson in eye-rolling pleasure.

Beforehand, ribbons of milk-poached veal tongue sprinkled with hot-fried capers and teamed with kingfish mayo is a take on vitello tonnato, better for the reimagining, while the house cotecchino sausage with lentils is as good as you’ll find anywhere.

Service, though well drilled, can err to the stiff, and the bill can err to the sky, but Rosetta remains on song.

Must eat dish: vitello tonnato

ROSETTA

Crown complex, Southbank.

Ph: 8648 1999

rockpool.com/rosettamelbourne

Cuisine: Italian

Chefs: Neil Perry, Angel Fernandez

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

Bookings: yes

Open: Tue-Sun noon-3pm, nightly 6pm-late

This restaurant was ranked the 81st best restaurant in Victoria in the 2016 edition of the delicious.100.