Carlton restaurant serves New York-style pizza and Melbourne’s best parma

HOW much would you pay for Melbourne’s best parma? Yes, it’s expensive, but the bone-in veal version they’re serving at this Carlton restaurant is worth every penny, writes Dan Stock.

IT’S the most magnificent thing I’ve seen all winter.

Spied across the dining room, holding court on a table enraptured by its charms, it looked as deeply golden and as lovingly created as an Instagram feed from Positano, its beauty alluring and otherworldly, transforming the everyday into extraordinary.

I had to make its acquaintance. I was not disappointed.

Veal as tender and unforgettable as a first kiss comes cuddled in crumbs at once delicate and powerfully crunchy. Served on the bone, topped with islands of melted mozzarella, fresh basil leaves and a sugo filled with fleet-footed sweet acid, it’s a classic, elevated to the greatest of heights.

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. For Melbourne’s best parmigiana, go directly to Capitano.

Outrage alert: it will cost you $65. But it will feed two.

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What price perfection? The veal parmigiana at Capitano. Pictures Rebecca Michael

Add a side — bitter greens, wilted with garlic and anchovy and served under a blizzard of finely grated parmesan; a modern potato salad with wobbly yolked eggs and salty bottarga (cured fish roe), $15 each — and you have a truly historic meal that’s worth every cent.

Italy via New York that’s landed with Melbourne brio in the city’s long-time heart of pizza and pasta, Capitano is not only doing parma but “pie” differently.

The team who turned Bar Liberty down the road into one of Melbourne’s nicest — and most delicious — homes of wine-dine good times has transformed a one-time dive bar into one of Melbourne’s nicest — and most delicious — pizza-pasta joints.

Capitano’s handsome dining room.

With a glass of golden Como lager in hand ($7, one of three on tap) and sun streaming through the handsome room this Saturday lunch I can’t think of a place I’d rather be.

With gleaming terrazzo underfoot and art deco drop pendants above, the simple space — burgundy walls, black bentwood chairs, a few tables with cloths, others dark and bare and a comfortable banquette that runs along one wall — is broken into bar and dining and would be, I imagine, challengingly loud when full with northside cool, which it is every night.

Outside of that majestic parma, chef Casey Wall is offering up a simple, small, selection of pizza and pasta informed by years the North Carolinian spent working in NYC.

Delicious, with a chance of meatballs

The pizzas are excellent. Out of the electric oven fabulously blistered black, the pliable and chewy bases with mozzarella, tomato and pecorino can come with a choose-your-own adventure of toppings — I can highly recommend our DIY creation of pickled chilli with rainbow chard ($24) — or as one of four suggestions. That excellent sugo becomes the sharp/sweet pond on which fat Sicilian anchovies swim, their oily, intense sea saltiness providing the perfect counter to the garlic-heavy tomato, with the base holding firm to the last bite ($23).

It’s elegant simplicity writ large.

Earlier, you might start with an antipasto of sharp pickled cauliflower florets, dill-marinated olives and whisper thin slivers of pork neck known as capocollo everywhere but New York, where it’s called gabagool, served with warmed focaccia with excellent lightly oiled crust ($20). Add a plate of meatballs — fat, tender, super-tasty versions hidden under more cheese — for maximum effect ($22).

The brilliantly blistered tomato pizza with anchovies

Just two pastas are offered for those so inclined, and includes a plate piled high with clams in a buttery, garlicky seawater sauce, though the chittara pasta (a fat spaghetti) was served too chalkily al dente for this table’s taste ($32).

Drinks, as to be expected from co-owner and one-time Attica sommelier Banjo Harris Plane, are as clever as they cool, with loads of interesting Italians and local varietals across price points.

A well-versed team is on hand to help navigate, while delivering leather pockets of cutlery and keeping the place humming.

Tiramisu comes in both creamy dessert and cool cocktail form

While I’m no fan of sneaking walnuts into a tiramisu that’s otherwise fine ($15), I very much endorse the version they’re serving from behind the bar — a milk-strained dark rum and marsala cocktail that’s the liquid equivalent of dessert and makes for the best nightcap around ($20). It’s amazing. Just like that parma.

CAPITANO

421 Rathdowne St, Carlton

Ph: 9134 8555

capitano.com.au

Open: Mon-Fri from 5pm, Sat-Sun from noon

Go-to dish:

Veal parmigiana