Abbiocco Highett: You’ll be back for seconds (and thirds) at this suburban Italian eatery

Cooler nights call for more food to feed the soul — and eating this suburban pasta and wine bar is as comforting as a warm hug.

Hands up if you’ve eaten yourself into euphoria.

Now keep them up if you’ve followed through with a cheeky nap.

I’m guilty of this on many occasions, especially when great food and wine are involved.

“Coma alimentaire” is what the French call this bliss, it’s “coma alimentos” in Spanish and in English that’s a full-blown food coma.

Abbiocco is not only the loose Italian translation of the phrase, but Highett’s answer to guilt free gluttony and death by pasta and wine.

Abbiocco Pasta and Wine opened on Highett Rd next to the train station last June, at a time when a hot plate of pasta and warm hug was all we really needed.

Prawn tortelli at Abbiocco in Highett. Picture: Supplied.

Nine months on and the quaint, 60-seater is firing as intended — alfresco affair out front, dapper dining out the back and a cosy courtyard where cheerful chatter, often indistinguishable between people and parrots, round out another day.

Owners and best mates Jarrod Amos, Glenn Mill and Pierre Geoffroy come from good pedigree.

They worked with hospo great Jacques Reymond in 2007, with Amos as chef and Mill and Geoffroy on the floor, and for the last five years have run Hampton Wine Co.

Disclaimer alert. At Abbiocco, nobody goes home hungry.

Like at nonna’s house, you will eat everything on your plate and dessert is a must.

It’s not hard when head chef Amos and Italian-born sous chef Pietro Gatto take you on a food tour of Italy, serving simple and seasonal meals.

Another disclaimer. I visited Abbiocco in the last week of its summer offering, so by the time you read this you may miss some favourites like the last of the season’s sweet heirloom tomatoes tossed with torn, creamy stracciatella and a salty black olive crumb ($17).

The sun also sets on Abbiocco’s take on “sarde in saor”— a sweet and sour fish starter using

Sicilian white anchovies instead of Venetian sardines ($11).

Parpadelle veal ragu. Picture: Supplied.

I’m told the crispy-fried whitebait to swipe in a caper-spiked aioli ($15), is here to stay, as are the arancini ($10 for two), which on this visit is a umami-bomb of porcini mushroom and scarmorza.

Wash it down with the surprisingly good Italian twist on a salty-sour margarita, slightly kissed with Aperol ($18) or a refreshing Abbiocco lager brewed by Cheltenham’s Bad Shepherd Brewery.

Abbiocco’s drawcard lies in its incredible, “how on earth did they make it so thin” pasta.

Silky soft, broad pappardelle ribbons are unlike anything your home pasta machine — or even some of Melbourne’s finest Italian restaurants — could hack.

You didn’t go to Abbiocco if you didn’t have the tiramisu. Picture: Supplied.

Here they come washed in a tender veal and porcini ragu that’s been bubbling on the stove for four hours in chicken broth, and crowned with a generous pecorino piling. Bellissimo ($32). Another favourite is the prawn tortelli ($35) of plump, sheet-thin parcels stuffed with sweet meat and drenched in a glossy, yolk-coloured roasted prawn head sauce that sings of the sea. What a delight.

Don’t think you’ll reach food coma territory without ending on something sweet.

The tiramisu ($14) will get you there, made the authentic way with mascarpone, showered in dark chocolate curls and packing a mighty espresso hit to jolt you out of slumber, or even the two-bite cannoli ($12 for two) filled with wispy ricotta and decorated on either end with chewy candied orange and pistachio.

The canolli. Picture: Supplied.

Mill, also Abbiocco’s manager and sommelier, has familiar Australian and Italian drops by the glass or bottle, as well as a selection of lesser-known grape varieties like a punchy Primitivo, Italy’s answer to red zinfandel, brimming with blackcurrant, spice and vanilla or sweet Recioto di Soave, honeyed in colour and flavour, and made using the traditional appassimento method of partially-dried grapes.

Elevate your experience with a glass of Barolo, Brunello di Montalcino or Amarone from the short Coravin list — which lets your drink luxe wine by the glass instead of paying for a bottle.

Abbiocco is indulgently good, oozing comfort and warmth.

It’s a pure delight. Pile up your plate and get eating.

Abbiocco in Highett. Picture: Supplied.

ABBIOCCO

501 Highett Rd, Highett

Wed- Fri: 5.30pm-11pm, Sat: 12pm-11pm, Sun: 12pm-10pm

Ph: 9191 4566

Go-to dish: Veal and porcini ragu