Reborn CBD stalwart Marameo serving modern Italian
Marameo serves up kitchen hits like a knockout plate of reginette and the terrifically twisted wagyu cannoli. But it’s not just the food luring in the office lads and ladies to this reborn CBD stalwart.
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Joe Mammone (Il Bacaro, Bar Carolina) knows all about the importance of renewal.
In 2005 he opened Sarti, an instantly acclaimed Italian restaurant that began life sharing its digs with a tailor – hence the name.
(Interestingly there’s now a new spot in the city, Cloakroom Bar, with a similar concept, where you go and sip Chivas while being asked if you dress to the left or right.)
But 14 years of keeping city suits in bistecca, Barolo and biscotti blunts the beauty of even the most robust of rooms, so last year Mamonne closed Sarti’s big red door, brought in long-time design collaborator Chris Connell, and reopened as Marameo.
While the name has changed and the red door is now white, the Italian style, brio – and the hidden terrace – remain the same as it ever was.
Barrel-aged negronis and a long line in spritz have afternoon sips in the sun sorted while the 300-strong cellar filled with big-hitting Italians still has those corporate cards in its sights.
But so, too, are the next gen of power lunchers who are now coming for $15 bowls of cacio e pepe, but Geoff Martin’s menu is filled with housemade pasta hits.
Before Christmas, it was paccheri – a large tube pasta from Campagnia – with a rustically elegant sauce of diced gurnard, fennel and fiery nduja that mightily impressed; more recently it was a knockout plate of reginette.
Like frilly fat tagliatelle, the supple pasta came tossed through a generous amount of pan-tanned rabbit, tiny diced carrots adding sweetness to the crunch of hazelnuts and the creamy saltiness of grated pecorino atop.
Put it up the top of your CBD pasta hit list ($32).
Sarti’s signature squid ink spaghetti ($33) is one of the few carryovers onto the new menu, though I found it less likeable than the newcomers.
Though no faulting the amount of crab, the sauce lacked the vibrant salty freshness of the sea, the crab’s sweetness muted in a dull chilli/tomato sauce. Though topped with bright orange fish roe, I fail to see the appeal of black food - surely screaming to our Neanderthal brain that Barry’s burnt the woolly mammoth again.
But the dish is certainly popular - as is the restaurant, which has the busy buzz of a favoured haunt and is three-fourths full by 6.30 this Tuesday night.
I’m sure more than a few of the office ladies and lads are here for the dashingly handsome Italians working the floor as much as they are for the wagyu cannoli (not a euphemism).
A fun savoury take on the traditional Sicilian dessert that swaps the ricotta for a chunky wagyu rump tartare seasoned with cornichons, the shell featuring the unmistakeable salty tang of parmesan. Dusted with horseradish powder, it’s terrifically twisted ($8 each).
More delicate finger food pleasures are found in the one-bite carrot crackers topped with bug tail dressed in mustard and sorrel ($9), though most tables are getting stuck into the charcuterie and fromaggi before their pasta.
It would be a shame, however, to stop there, for the short carte features a few crowd-pleasing proteins – Cone Bay barra with zucchini and mint ($39), a pork chop cotoletta ($38) – that fly out of the kitchen that’s well-drilled in the one-hour lunch of the CBD set.
And though spatchcock screams “something for the secretaries”, here it’s less eye-rolling and more jaw-dropping, the excellent bird marinated for 24 hours in lemon and mustard before being whacked on the grill. Tender, juicy and golden-skinned, it’s served atop garlic-braised rainbow chard that satisfyingly retains a touch of crunchy bite. It’s a plate filled with simple pleasures executed with aplomb ($39).
The room itself is delightful, as chic as Milan fashion week but yet still very Melbourne; that hidden terrace perfect for a blossoming office romance over a spritz, the restaurant itself cleverly broken into spaces with a supremely comfortable burnt orange banquette that runs the perimeter of the room the feature. The concrete/blond/black palate is muted, artworks adding pops of graphic colour.
Small things, such as setting the cutlery back-to-front, are subtle style statements that complete an undeniably glamorous whole.
Though there’s an extensive cellar of hero Italians with age – a 1999 Gaja Costa Russi will set someone back $900 – the cleverly curated list has something with class for all budgets, but to leave on a high you’ll only need to spend $5.
An Italian take on the profiterole, the bigne here is a crunchy pastry shell filled with creamy white chocolate mousse and runny salted caramel. It’s sweet, cheekily stylish and incredibly enjoyable.
As is Marameo. Less reinvention, more renewal, this stylish Italian looks set to impress for another decade.
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MARAMEO
6 Russell Place, Melbourne
marameo.com.au
Open: Mon-Fri lunch; Mon-Sat dinner
Go-to dish: Reginette with rabbit
SCORE 14.5 / 20