Lello in Flinders Lane serving some of Melbourne’s best pasta

IN a city that remains obsessed with Italian, Lello on Flinders Lane is serving up the best pasta in town — and its lasagne should be on every foodie’s CBD hit list.

It’s called “arso maccheroni cacio e pepe”.

Rome’s most famous contribution to Italy’s carb canon, cacio e pepe is a simple dish of pecorino cheese and pepper usually made with spaghetti.

Here, instead, you’ll find hand-rolled, pinky-sized curls of maccheroni made from a dark, smoky burnt-grain flour called grano arso. This style of pasta was the traditional preserve of Puglian peasants, who’d salvage and mill the wheat leftover after fields had been torched and cleared by fire, a practice known as gleaning.

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A Roman dish made from Puglian wheat into a dish you’d only be served in Melbourne?

Italians might call it sacrilege. I just call it delicious.

There’s real heat thanks to many generous cracks of black pepper, along with the sweet and slightly salty pecorino that a splash of cooking water emulsifies into a sauce.

Arso maccheroni cacio e pepe is sublime — and not even the best dish at Lello. Picture: Nicki Connolly

The pasta with both al dente bite and toasted depth is perfect; a dusting of more cheese finishing one of the city’s great pasta dishes ($27.90). And it’s not the best thing you’ll eat at Lello.

Leo Gelsomino is the man with that Midas touch, kneading and rolling, cutting, twisting and twirling pasta for a half-dozen dishes you’ll unlikely find elsewhere.

Lello — a childhood nickname for the chef — is the evolution of Yak Italian Kitchen, where Leo’s been plying his trade since 2011.

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Before that, he was at Richmond’s The Grand for a decade, when its dining room was the essential booking for every Italophile on both sides of the Yarra.

This latest incarnation of the restaurant — with his name rightfully above the door — completes the circle, for Lello is now equally essential.

A makeover late last year has created a quietly handsome dining room, as friendly for a quick business lunch for two as a pre-theatre table of 10.

The front dining room at Lello, Flinders Lane. Picture: Nicki Connolly

A supremely comfortable grey felt banquette runs the length of one wall and along the concertina windows that let both the early evening breeze and the street colour of Flinders Lane in.

Slate grey and olive green walls are hung with stunning photography of the Italian coast and artful black and whites of that pasta in action.

Co-owner Chris McIntryre looks after the floor with quiet aplomb, offering a guiding splash from the Italian-centric list here, a backstory to a pasta there.

A good-looking almost exclusively Vic beer list is augmented with a handful on tap ranging from Carlton Draught to uber-hip Goose Island from the US, while the tight wine list holds local interest — an ungi blanc from Glenrowan, say — and DOCG Italian traditions in equal, well-priced, measure.

There’s a handful of on theme entrees to begin — ricotta-filled zucchini flowers, grilled calamari, salumi — and includes a robust housemade Calabrian sausage, fat with pork, red with roasted peppers, served with a wodge of grilled smoked scamorza cheese.

The little bundles of joy that are the potato culurgiones. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Charred and oiled triangles of bouncy focaccia and a lemon cheek accompany. It’s nice, if not revelatory ($18.90). The pasta though, is.

Known as “bundles of joy” culurgiones are Sardinian ravioli, delicately pleated plump dumplings with a filling of potato brightened with mint.

This night they come with blanched broccoli florets dressed with colatura di Alici (an anchovy fish sauce) and toasted almonds. They’re not only a meat-free Monday win ($27.80).

But if that wasn’t enough to give potatoes a hall pass from the dietary demons hit list, then the gnocchi surely does. These little nuggets of the lightest dough disappear in seconds on the tongue, just leaving the pleasure of a saffron-tinged saltbush lamb ragu with a spritz of lemon to linger. Incredible ($27.80).

Gippsland rabbit features in the changing pasta: a rustic braise of diced meat tossed through supple tagliolini one day; another, leg served on the bone with pancetta and whole Ligurian olives. Both are excellent ($28.80).

The fun tiramisu is served in a terracotta pot under chocolate soil. Picture: Nicki Connolly

A properly sharp lemon granita ($9.80) with raspberry coulis and delicious candied orange peel is a lighter way to finish than the cute “tiramisu in giardino”, where a light-on-the-booze version is served in a terracotta pot under chocolate soil.

It’s fun rather than fabulous ($15.50).

At any rate you’ll likely have no room for a dessert other than excellent Atomica coffee ($4), savouring instead the memory of the Vincisgrassi lasagne.

For this dish from the Marche region (as opposed to Emiligia-Romagna) is, quite simply, the most extraordinary pasta you’re likely to eat.

Leo has perfected his version over the years: feather light pasta sheets layer a beef ragu amped with a tiny dice of veal sweetbreads and lambs brain. There’s added creaminess from the lightest touch of béchamel, parmesan on top baked to a crunchy crust ($28.80). It’s last-meal stuff.

Lello — and that lasagne — should be on every eater’s CBD hit list.

Lello

150 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Ph: 9654 6699

Open: Daily from 7am (8am weekends)

Go-to dish: Vincisgrassi lasagne

Rating: 15/20

lellopastabar.com.au