Victoria’s best Italian restaurants revealed
From the early days of Lygon St, Melburnians have always loved their Italian restaurants. These are the best restaurants for your pasta and pizza fix.
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Melburnians have a love affair with Italian restaurants and we’ve never had a better selection to choose from.
From tagliatelle heaped with crabmeat to fall-apart beef cheek on creamy polenta, these are Victoria’s best Italian dishes and restaurants in this year’s delicious. 100.
Di Stasio Citta
The Spring St outpost of Rinaldo “Ronnie” Distasio’s St Kilda sweetheart is a weird and wonderful mashup of restaurant meets gallery – austere in looks, yet rich in warm Italian hospitality and ‘hug-in-a-bowl’ food. It doesn’t fit any preconceived ideas of upscale Milan eateries, with racy red leather seats and visual artist Reko Rennie’s looped projections beaming on to polished concrete walls – but why would it? The super-slick site has been feeding the city’s deep pockets since 2019, but a few things have changed. Star Maitre d’ Chris Young has left, with Mallory Wall and crew filling the gaps. A lockdown set menu still replaces the usual a la carte, fashioned to feed the dine-and-dash or buckle-in-boozer crowds. Speaking of bars, Città’s long marble masterpiece is a prime supplier of negronis or Di Stasio’s own Mornington Peninsula-grown pinot noir. Did someone say snacks? Perhaps a plate of sunny tagliatelle heaped with fluffy crabmeat (pro tip: all pasta comes in half-serves) or standout sweet, plump scallops buried beneath a buttery rubble of parmesan breadcrumbs. Or lean into winter sloth mode with a glossy, fall-apart beef cheek resting on creamy polenta. Come for soul-warming fare, stay for the show. A masterpiece.
La Cantina
“You can’t go wrong with the pasta.”
It’s wise advice from the young waitress, who assures everything is good at La Cantina. Located at not-for-profit community farm, Common Ground Project, at Freshwater Creek near the start of the Great Ocean Road, La Cantina is the farmhouse Italian restaurant of husband-and-wife duo Glenn Laurie and Lolo Hanser. Now back to that pasta. The homemade linguine is served al-dente, jostling with Discovery Bay pipis, just the right amount of dried chilli, pangrattato (breadcrumbs) providing an exhilarating crunch and a delicate sauce of tomato, garlic, basil and Insolia wine modestly unpinning it all. Meanwhile, a compelling and decadent mix of olive sauce, lentils and radicchio pairs perfectly with a tender wood-grilled flatiron steak. A festoon of light bulbs spans the outdoor seating area to help lure visitors off the highway and up a dirt track to the eco-conscious farm, which opened in 2021. Couples sip wine side-by-side on tables oriented to soak in those views of forever-stretching fields, while it’s more of an intimate affair inside the rustic, tall-ceiling farmhouse, which seats about 50 people. Come for a road trip, stay for the linguine – and everything else that makes La Cantina special.
Park Street Pasta & Wine
Park Street Pasta & Wine is the friendly neighbourhood osteria you want in your neck of the woods, with head chef Angus Cadden serving up fresh, seasonal Italian fare. The restaurant lives across two levels of a 130-year-old corner terrace, warmed by a crackling fireplace and Art Deco pendants, setting the scene for a romantic spaghetti and vino affair. Skipping straight to the pasta, all seven on offer are proudly fatto a mano (made by hand) daily using Tipo 00 flour and organic Daylesford eggs. A creamy cacio e pepe with squiggly mafaldine ribbons arrives blanketed in fluffy, finely grated pecorino romano, while large conchiglie (shells) are stirred through with Fremantle octopus, ’nduja (spicy, spreadable sausage) and crunchy lemon pangrattato (breadcrumbs). But there’s plenty more on offer. Snack on panko-crumbed, lightly fried mortadella and pork shoulder polpette (meatballs); pull-apart delicate Hiramasa kingfish crudo lapping in a rosemary-spiked olive oil; and wrap sweet melon slices in blankets of culatta (dried cured ham). Post-pasta, it’s hard to resist the white chocolate panna cotta, drowned in strawberries and a rose-coloured sauce by your waiter table side. Spritzy cocktails precede an impressive selection of Italian wines, including savoury sangioveses and full-bodied nebbiolos.
Di Stasio Pizzeria
Marking hospitality power duo Ronnie Di Stasio and Mallory Wall’s third offering to the city, Di Stasio Pizzeria’s family resemblance is strong: a proprietary blend of sharp modernist art-fuelled polish meets Italian service and classic cuisine. The menu is a choose-your-own-adventure of uncomplicated Italo classics, executed with detailed precision. Snacks are never a bad way to start — do as the menu suggests and try the trippa fritta. Tender slivers of braised tripe are encased in a crispy fried batter and simply served with lemon. Pizzas are split into five red sauce and five white pillowy crusted, thin-based, uncluttered Neapolitan-style slices that run the gamut from Margherita and capricciosa to the slightly less humble lobster with lardo and house made fior di latte. The woodfire oven lends smoke, char and crust to more than pizza. Crystalline prawns emerge from the embers atop chickpeas both in velvety puree and crispy fried form, garnished with a sweet, smoky chilli. Carlton has no shortage of Italian commitment to good food, good wine and good times, but what sets this place apart is a clear and confident sense of identity and a top-tier swagger all its own.
Osteria Ilaria
Step aside Tipo 00, it’s time for little sister Osteria Ilaria to shine. The fiery Italian CBD restaurant spreads guests across the bar and dining room for prime viewing of the central kitchen. It’s all modern Italian eats, with a few pastas and mains (and chef’s menu and wine pairings to save hassle), with the aim of the game to share. Seasonal mains change daily, offering up such rock star dishes as King George whiting spaghetti – the fish lightly seasoned and thrown over the hibachi to achieve a smoky, crisp finish before it’s draped over al dente spaghetti tumbled with a koji and sardine sauce. Pair with a skin-contact trebbiano to amp up the umami factor. But dessert is where it’s truly at: a surprising ruby chocolate cream is housed in a tiled dome of thinly sliced salted radish, which is peeled back to reveal a soft rhubarb centre – it’s a work of art. Osteria Ilaria has stepped out from behind the shadow of its famous older sibling next door and is making its own mark, serving spectacularly modern dishes with purpose and passion.
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