Cosi Bar Ristorante review 2023: Kara Monssen visits Italian stalwart

This South Yarra restaurant may be expensive — with $50 pastas and $60 steaks — but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t visit.

Cosi’s linguine marinara may be $50 a pop — but it’s made with skill, love and is ‘oh my gawwd’ good.

Let’s address the bleedingly obvious – Cosi is costly.
You’ll pay up to $50 for pasta and $60 for wagyu rump steak.

Does that mean you shouldn’t visit? Absolutely not.

There’s something intriguingly disarming about this place.

A cosiness, warmth, charm – and something oddly sensual about that linguine marinara that doesn’t miss a damn beat.

Fork meets spoon, golden strands pirouette, noodle to lips, a puckered kiss.

Tomato whispering sweet nothings to perky mussels, salty clams jiggle with prawns, a firm stroke of linguine.

When food is cooked with this level of love and skill, every flavour and texture comes alive in such beautiful ways.

It separates mediocre from magic – and it’s for these moments that we eat out.

If you haven’t been, you could so easily assume it was another daggy Toorak Rd snoozer feeding old money, yet recently there’s been a changing of the guard.

The Lakes Entrance calamari doesn’t miss a beat.

The Boukouras bros handed over the keys to the 27-year-old stalwart in 2019 to new owners Omar El Deek and brothers Giacomo and Donatello Pietrantuono.

Only seven years before they moved from Italy to Australia – reportedly with only $1000 to their name – to start a new chapter. And after landing a gig at Cosi, things began falling into place. A reno two years ago brought the long-stretching, narrow dining room rocketing into this century – complete with fawn leather banquettes and chairs, timber floors, white tablecloths
and wine boxes decorating throughout.

El Deek leads the charge, while Giacomo sorts wine and Donatello is on the pans, dividing his time between their other venues – Cucinetta down the road and Carboni’s in Ballarat.

They’ve also recently bought Vaporetto in Hawthorn.

This was my first time at Cosi. I’ve had Carboni’s; my only memories being the pasta was overpriced yet delicious.

It’s kind of the same deal here.

Though Donatello’s take on kingfish crudo ($36.99) is worth every cent.

Things are costly at Cosi.

Dotted like parchment paper-fine confetti on the plate, lashed with olive oil, capers, rocket and pink grapefruit – umami levels plunging to the depths the fish was caught, peppered with a rocket punch. It’s clever, unique, delicious.

Calamari ($29.99 entree, $36.99 main) – tentacles and all – aren’t processed white hula hoops ringed, battered and fried. It’s the real deal, fished from Lakes Entrance and speckled in a crisp blonde salty crust that demands a beer. A big yes.

Of the six pastas on the list, half are made in the trio’s Ballarat pasta lab, the others air-dried under the Naples sun.

My brain hurts justifying a $50 spend on packet pasta, though it’s worth mentioning we’re not just paying for what’s on the plate. Aside from the expertly-cooked seafood in that linguine marinara ($49.99), thought also went into selecting only the best produce for the job, how it would be portioned and plated (generously and divided kitchenside for ease) – as well as a myriad of other costs that go into running a business in this climate.

In short, it’s soul-warming stuff that’s worth the experience.

Cosi has been serving authentic Italian food on Toorak Rd since 1996.

The Wagyu rump cap ($59.99), sees about a dozen finely sliced tiles, blushing a pinkish medium-rare that’s not shy of flavour or tenderness – and after everything that came before, it’s almost too much to finish.

Wine by the glass is pretty good (nothing’s over $20) but you’re better off taking advantage of the $15 corkage instead of paying a premium for a sub-par bottle.

Many are feeling that cost of living pinch (and if you’re not, please carry on) and questioning their eating-out priorities.

While the Reserve Bank won’t allow us to return to Cosi quickly, it’s a reminder of why you must make it your mission to seek out those ‘oh my gawwwd’ moments at all costs – and you may just find some here.