Miss Kneady Eatery in Templestowe cracks the doughnut-making code with nutella zepolli
Souffle soft in the centre, a crisp outer shell and coated in cinnamon sugar, caramel and nutella. Has this Templestowe eatery in Melbourne’s outer east cracked the doughnut making code?
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Templestowe’s new Italian diner Miss Kneady Eatery cast a net for a pasta cook and hooked a nonna.
Local woman, nonna Rosa, comes in twice a week to make rigatoni, gnocchi, arancini and meatballs after her son responded to a shopfront flyer.
Replacing Mediterranean restaurant Senses, Miss Kneady Eatery opened in June, with two of its five owners being Attil and Mark Filippelli, the brothers also behind Waverley Park’s The Last Piece cafe, St Kilda’s cult Matcha Mylkba r and vegan-friendly CBD patisserie Weirdoughs.
Nonna Rosa joins a cast of cooks in the all-day eatery’s kitchen. Pizzaiolo Anthony Stagliano uses his dough-slinging skills honed at New York’s Kesté pizzeria to create the perfect base — not too stodgy or fall-apart thin.
He cold ferments the dough for 72 hours to break down the gluten, making it lighter to eat and quicker to cook.
Then it’s into the custom-made pizza oven that sees margarita pizzas reach cheese-bubbling, puffy-crust perfection in just 60 seconds.
The mushroom pizza ($23) takes the crust, with fierce flames curling the edges of sliced funghi, sizzling taleggio cheese and baking crisp a thin base spread thick with truffle and mushroom paste that’s a gift from the umami gods.
Head chef Jamie Evans (formerly of Fremantle’s Norfolk Hotel) is another recruit who makes it hard to choose a menu favourite.
The wood-roasted porchetta ($34) is rolled in spicy pork nduja and thrust into 500C oven heat to make the skin crackle and pop.
The pork flesh is butter-tender and best washed down with a glass of chianti or nero d’avola from a wine list of Italian and Australian hits.
The 36 hour-braised beef shin ragu ($28) paired with nonna Rosa’s al dente rigatoni tubes is deliciously comforting, while pastry chef Nicola Solis cracks the doughnut-making code with his souffle soft-centred zeppoli ($14) that spend a moment in the fryer before being tossed in cinnamon sugar, Nutella and a sticky caramel sauce. It’s hard not to order seconds.
Miss Kneady Eatery boasts a food intolerance-friendly kitchen, with all 13 pizzas and six pastas able to be made gluten-free on request for $3 more for bought-in spaghetti and $4 for potato starch and rice flour pizza bases.
The restaurant keeps things playful with its name (inspired by the pizza dough making motion) and decor.
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An unmissable bright pink neon “all you knead is love” sign beams from one of the white walls.
Green ivy vines dangle from the ceiling, while a grey terrazzo-speckled bar anchors the 130 seater.
A weeknight visit almost sees a full house inside, with the 40-seater alfresco area sure to attract crowds on sunny weekends.
Not many places can master an all-day menu, serving morning coffee and brunch and pasta and pizza into the evening.
But Miss Kneady Eatery passes with flying colours, serving homely Italian fare in a casual setting that’d make any nonna proud.
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