delicious.100: Where to go for Melbourne’s best Italian food
MELBOURNE’S Italian heart beats for authentic cuisine steeped in tradition and bold flavours. Pull the cork on that cheeky Montepulciano and twirl your fork into perfect pasta — these are the city’s very best Italian restaurants.
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MELBOURNE’S heart beats for authentic cuisine steeped in tradition and bold flavours, with vibrant Italian restaurants and cafes now as much a part of the city as the Trevi fountain is to Rome.
From ricotta-plumped ravioli to fork-perfect osso buco, homemade pappardelle and desserts masquerading as miniature masterpieces, our food experts have sought out the tasty, the comforting and the delicious.
Pull the cork on that cheeky Montepulciano and twirl your fork into perfect pasta — these are the city’s very best Italian restaurants as ranked in the delicious.100, the only food guide to rank Victoria’s top 100 restaurants.
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BECCO
11-25 Crossley St, Melbourne
03 9663 3000
In a town where a new restaurant seems to open every other week, 21-year-old Becco still has the keys to this Italian-hearted city.
Becco’s good bones, in the form of that smart, terrazzo-floored dining room and panoramic laneway lookout, paired with flawless cooking cements its continued place above dining trends and fads.
There’s business and political types doing lunch by day, and flirty couples and a pre-theatre crowd by night enjoying the Becco brand of Italian comfort food flashed with brilliance.
Entrees are impeccable.
Plump rings of chilli flour-dusted calamari are luxuriously tender to swipe through a sparky jalapeño aioli, while paper-thin beef carpaccio, loaded with rocket, capers, Parmesan and a pitch-perfect Worcestershire mayo, melts in the mouth.
Pasta is another highlight via a joyous fettuccine with bitter cime di rapa and juicy nubs of pork sausage. Italian staples also star. Pull-apart osso buco lands on a bed of silky saffron risotto laced with bone marrow to savour with an excellent red from a wide and sensibly priced list.
Traditional desserts include a memorably wicked gooey-centred chocolate fondant with hazelnut cream.
Service is attentive yet breezy, with staff who work the room and bar with panache.
Becco is a reliable pleasure that’s classically stylish and tasty at every turn.
Must eat dish: Fettucine with pork sausage
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: Carmine Mari
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch & Dinner Mon-Fri, Dinner Saturday
Instagram: @beccorestaurant
TIPO 00
361 Little Bourke St, Melbourne
03 9942 3946
There are pasta bars, then there’s Tipo 00. It remains one of the most sought-out spots since its 2015 opening, still on everyone’s lips as the place to twirl probably Melbourne’s best pasta.
The rustic room has a lo-fi bistro vibe, but no bells and whistles are needed here — they’re packing them in night after night, letting that luscious pasta do the heavy lifting as busy waiters navigate the tight space like ballerinas.
Order up and you’ll soon be delivered house-made focaccia, warm and crunchy with a generous spoon of fresh ricotta. It’s delicious, not to mention on the house.
Back it up with silky burrata that comes with two discs of pliable eggplant fried in golden crumbs for a comfort dish worth hanging the diet for.
Enjoy the interlude between entree and the main act with a Tuscan sangiovese from a good-priced list of Italian drops.
Casarecce pinging with chunky pork sausage and radicchio is a salty sucker punch of flavour, a splash of white wine keeping its tangle lush, while roly-poly tortelloni beds down with cauliflower, Parmesan and sage to tasty effect.
Dolce? Perhaps a panna cotta heady with lemon verbena or the hero “tipomisu” blending chocolate, coffee and mascarpone.
Named after the flour used to make its winning pasta, Tipo 00 remains at the vanguard of showcasing the best of Italy.
Must eat dish: Casarecce with pork sausage
Cuisine: Italian
Chefs: Andreas Papadakis, Albert Fava
Price: $
Bookings: Yes
Open: Mon-Sat 11.30am-10pm
Instagram: @tipo_00
GROSSI FLORENTINO
80 Bourke St, Melbourne
03 9662 1811
Grossi Florentino is a masterclass in top-end, old-school Italian hospitality. Its famously ornate dining room, resplendent with Renaissance murals and sparkly chandeliers, is a sight to behold, steeped in tradition to match the old-school service that’s obliging and chivalrous with doors opened in welcome and at meal’s end, jackets proffered and taxis called by waistcoated waiters.
In between, you’ll experience something altogether more modern. Your minimum three courses will be supplemented with snacks — mod-style canapés that show technique and goodwill.
Entrees skew to seafood, such as a risotto given a subtle taste of the sea with supple cuttlefish. But don’t go past the stunning simplicity of ravioli primed to ooze its egg yolk heart with a sideways glance.
Velvety, fork-tender goat made dark and sticky with chestnut flower honey is lush and balanced. Or lean lighter with a frisky tomato and saffron broth holding clams, broad beans and a fleshy fillet of bass grouper.
Desserts are miniature masterpieces. Be swept up in the ethereal souffle that’s like chancing upon a floating chocolate cloud.
Dishes are allied to a cellar that runs deep with some of Italy’s finest. You’ll pay for the privilege of your time here, but a happy marriage of old and new awaits.
Must eat dish: Ravioli with egg yolk
Cuisine: Italian
Chefs: Guy Grossi, Chris Rodriguez
Price: $$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Mon-Fri; Dinner Mon-Sat
Instagram: @grossiflorentino
ROSA’S CANTEEN
Cnr Thomson and Little Bourke Sts, Melbourne
03 9602 5491
If your image of dining heaven features homely cooking, warm service and little chance of bill shock, ascend the stairs to Rosa’s Canteen.
Tucked away in the CBD’s legal district, this mezzanine space is tall and airy, with louvre windows overlooking leafy treetops and a sleek and modern fit out that belies its rustic soul.
Sicilian-born hairdresser-turned-chef Rosa Mitchell is the namesake dynamo, her cooking synonymous with bold Italian flavours, which prevail here in the dual delights of pasta and dessert.
Twisted casarecci cling to a rich beef shin ragu, while ricotta-plumped ravioli cushion a robust pork and fennel sauce. These bowls are best enjoyed with an Italian red, good value here by the glass.
The crisp and creamy ricotta-filled, pistachio-dipped cannoli is justly renowned, as are the tart specials, like the silky chocolate version irresistibly cooling on the pass.
Cheeky and obliging service brings a smile, as will the well-priced bill, for Rosa’s Canteen is a study in big-hearted hospitality.
Must eat dish: Ravioli with pork and fennel
Cuisine: Italian
Chefs: Rosa Mitchell, Clare Bartell
Price: $
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Mon-Fri, Dinner Mon-Sat
Instagram: @rosascanteen
CAFE DI STASIO
31 Fitzroy St, St Kilda
03 9525 3999
St Kilda’s trams, tourists and traders may blow with the bay breeze, but Cafe Di Stasio remains a constant.
For nearly three decades, this den of tight tables, Italian classics and white-jacketed waiters has lured a loyal following who lob for long lunches as much as Sunday supper with the kids.
Arrive early and sidle up to the adjoining bar with its high marble counter for some of Melbourne’s top snacks (the after-school sandwich is bang-the-table good), then decamp to the dining room for an authentic taste of old-school Italian.
This is the best way to experience the full force of Ronnie Di Stasio’s dining institution.
Open with beef carpaccio braced with lemon or the golden-crusted eggplant parmigiana sandwiching tomato sugo, mozzarella and parmesan, before trading up to pasta that’s a tad firmer than al dente.
Calamari pieces and wilted radicchio jostle with chewy diamonds of maltagliati pasta made from bread, while prosciutto and sage give depth to pan-fried fillets of veal, gloriously glistening in butter along with bronzed pucks of semolina gnocchi.
Service can feel a little like you need to be a regular to get top treatment, but waiters are obliging, reciting the long list of daily specials with ease and readily topping up drinks, perhaps a perky pinot noir from Di Stasio’s own Yarra Valley vineyard.
The room is a simple palette of mottled walls and white linens, but radiates with the buzz of good food and good times.
Must eat dish: Eggplant parmigiana
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: Rinaldo ‘Ronnie’ Di Stasio
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch & dinner daily
Instagram: @bardistasio
GROSSI GRILL
80 Bourke St, Melbourne
03 9662 2518
If Grossi Florentino upstairs calls for Canali suits and Ferragamo heels, Grossi Grill is a chinos-and-blazer kind of place.
A window seat at this buzzing Italian diner is ideal for doing lunch and doing deals, for flirting and carousing and pulling the cork on that cheeky Montepulciano you always wanted to try.
Then there’s Grossi Grill’s impressive Tuscan-focused fare. Head chef Mario Di Natale commands an open kitchen equipped with a Josper oven and Asado grill. Both impart deep, charry flavour to everything they touch — spears of asparagus and cos lettuce leaves through to capsicum and slabs of bistecca (steak).
Di Natale’s whole baby snapper served with broccoli rabe comes blistered to perfection, its pearly meat falling off the bone, while Cape Grim Angus porterhouse acquires a seriously good heat-scorched crust.
It’s not all grill-work. Guy Grossi’s deft waitstaff can have you lapping up pickled tongue with salsa verde, twirling a fork into the prawn taglierini and leapfrogging through well-kept Euro cheeses. But the main game here is ‘la griglia’.
“The grill is a truly an extension of the Italian kitchen’s soul,’’ Grossi likes to say.
True. It can also be a lot of fun and utterly delicious.
Must-eat dish Baby snapper, cime di rapa
Cuisine Italian Chef Mario Di Natale
Price $$ Bookings yes
Open Lunch & dinner Mon-Sat
Instagram @grossiflorentino
OSTERIA ILARIA
367 Little Bourke St, Melbourne
03 9642 2287
No sophomore slump for the Tipo 00 crew, instead, the team behind Melbourne’s cult pasta bar has doubled down on their domination of redefining Italian in the city by opening a classy osteria right next door.
While Tipo introduced a new generation to the simple pleasures of pasta done properly, this osteria is forging a modern — and very Melbourne — interpretation of Italian traditions.
That might look like whole baby octopus, splayed in all its charred, tentacled glory across a fiery puddle of the spreadable Calabrian sausage nduja to create one of this year’s don’t-miss dishes; or a fat finger of ‘pecorino cheesecake’, where a salty-cheesy wobble of set cream is attended by chunky pine mushrooms’ or, even excellent house-made pork sausage spiked with liver that’s served with a sharp rhubarb puree and a scattering of spiced crumbs.
Charred cime di rapa teamed with creamed corn and kernels blackened on the grill is a win for the veg side of the ledger, while mains tackle proteins with equal respect in the likes of pork scotch served with a dice of stewed apple, and dry-aged porterhouse with marrow butter.
It’s clever, original cooking that’s complemented by a drinks list that adds an impressive collection of beer and creative cocktails to a huge cellar of wines spanning plenty of styles, varietals and price points, served by a switched-on team led from the front by co-owner Luke Skidmore’s quiet, calm brand of hospitality.
Osteria makes it two for two for the team and for that, we’re all winners.
Must eat dish: Baby octopus with nduja
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: Andreas Papadakis
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Mon-Sat 11.30am-late
Instagram: @osteriailaria
IL BACARO
168 Lt Collins St, Melbourne
03 9654 6778
It’s simple, stylish and seemingly always filled with people having a good time, whether couples canoodling in the corner, business deals done over a bottle of Barolo, or the elegant sexagenarian solo diner enjoying her pinot gris and gnocchi with hazelnuts, egg yolk and black truffle.
For more than two decades, Il Bacaro has been wooing Melbourne with its blend of old-school hospitality, quietly attentive service and timeless good looks.
What’s not to love about fat slices of ruby Wagyu beef dressed with tiny white anchovy and silver served onto the plate in front of you? Or a generous amount of translucent Moreton Bay bug meat tossed through a twirl of perfect spaghettini with dancing chilli heat and a happy whack of garlic?
Modern interpretations are equally — surprisingly — impressive. Dusted with punchy horseradish powder and dotted with bottarga mayo, the tiles of raw tuna and swordfish and tiny pickled turnip is a Melbourne version of crudo better for the reimagining.
Risotto of Jerusalem artichoke and crab is an alluring marriage of earthy creaminess and the sweet sea, while the wine list that’s an impressive assembly of Italian hits makes for equally good memories.
With no signs of fading, highly acclaimed Il Bacaro remains one of Melbourne’s most accomplished and impressive — if expensive — houses for cucina Italian.
Must eat dish: Spaghettini with Morton Bay bugs
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: David Dellai
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch and dinner, Mon-Sat
Instagram: @ilbacaromelbourne
MASSI
445 Little Collins St, Melbourne
03 9670 5347
Like a wise old soul, Massi feels like it’s been here for decades.
But it was only in 2016 when owner/chef Joseph Vargetto opened this elegant yet casual CBD bistro, a sibling to Kew’s Mister Bianco, where his Sicilian brand of Italian sings of the seasons and simplicity.
Salumi is sliced to order, or start with arancini, four hearty thick-shelled beauties filled with porcini-flecked rice. Or perhaps the burrata topped with chargrilled peppers “in the mist”, smoked at your table under a glass cloche for flavour and drama.
The pasta is good; the ricotta gnocchi a standout, its pillowy parcels bedded with tender pork neck cooked in milk, sage and lemon, all nestled with an egg yolk ready to unleash and enjoy.
Whether you’re perched at the marble bar or in a leather booth, arty Fornasetti faces will watch you Mona Lisa-style from the wall as you savour an Italian red and later, maybe a generously stuffed cannolo. Molto bene, Massi!
Must-eat dish: Ricotta gnocchi with pork neck
Cuisine: Italian
Chef: Joseph Vargetto
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Mon 11am-4pm, Tue-Fri 11am-late, Sat 5.30pm-late
Instagram: @massirestaurant
ROSETTA
Crown Complex, Southbank
03 8648 1999
No matter how many times you’ve stepped into Rosetta’s opulent dining room before, her sheer beauty never fails to wow. Flamboyant as Milan’s La Scala, she’s filled to pussy’s bow with marble, mahogany, red velvet and glittering chandeliers. Rosetta is drop-dead gorgeous and entices for dress-up dinners and flashy bowls of pasta.
The menu is chef Neil Perry’s ode to Italy, inspired by his extensive travels there. You’ll dine the country’s culinary breadth, from heartier fare such as osso buco and bucatini alla amatriciana, to lighter dishes, many seafood-skewed.
House-made pappardelle cavorts with hunks of fork-tender braised pork, oregano and shaved Parmesan, while two King George whiting fillets arrive with stunning simplicity, their skin scorched from the chargrill, the flesh sweet and succulent.
Desserts are as razzle-dazzle as the décor. A dense baked chocolate mousse is lightened with caramelised pear and pear sorbet, while Rosetta’s tiramisu remains one of the town’s best.
Served by smart white-jacketed waiters, you’ll eat and drink from a long and pricey — mostly Italian — wine list under the gaze of Italian stars, whose photos adorn the walls. Perhaps adjourn to the all-weather terrace set with white wicker chairs, but really, it’s all about that lavish bella donna of a room.
Must-eat dish: Pappardelle with braised pork
Cuisine: Italian
Chefs: Neil Perry, Angel Fernandez
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Tue-Sun, dinner daily
Instagram: @rosettaristorante
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