Grossi Grill restaurant review 2023: Kara Monssen reviews Melbourne’s Italian icon

He’s the household name behind many of our city’s beloved Italian restaurants, but is Guy Grossi’s Grill still deserving of its elite status?

Is Guy Grossi’s Grossi Grill still worth your time and money? Our food critic says so. Picture: Tony Gough

“It’s the best tiramisu in the world,” our waiter remarks, confidently, before taking a slight back step.

“ … Well, it’s the best in Melbourne.”

A huge call in anyone’s books, yet at Grossi Grill nobody bats an eyelid.

I’m sure a straw poll on Bourke St would show favour to the city’s Italian dining icon.

After decades in the biz, the Grossi clan have a celebrated reputation in this city like very few others and a single-name Melbourne restaurant fame relatable to the likes of Di Stasio or Lucas.

But in this new-world hospo game, filled with curve balls, pivots and seat-of-your-pants ingenuity, do these assumed laurel-resting old faves possess what it takes to keep up?

At Grill, yes, but things aren’t always as they first seem.

For non-Melbourne mates, Grill is the middle child in the Grossi clan: more elevated than Cellar Bar next door (which has a Euro-wine bar feel), yet out of reach from its posh, “milestone dining” older sibling Florentino.

The Crespelle alla Fiorentina. Picture: Tony Gough

Scallops in a herb and brioche crust. Picture: Tony Gough

The food is a love letter to Tuscany with most things taking turn over the grill.

Grill isn’t somewhere you’d eat often in this financial climate.

Its handsome, mid-2010s dining room nip-tuck complete with white tablecloths and silver service suggests so, as do the lockdown-born set menus which start at $90 for two courses (excluding hard-to-pass-up appetisers and sweets).

Also, if you drink, the booze list is impressive yet expensive.

My first visit to Grill for this review was memorable for the wrong reasons.

Something just wasn’t right that night – service clunky and meals forgotten – so in fairness I revisited just as the Christmas tree pine wilted.

I was pleasantly surprised, mainly for how starkly different the experiences were.

If service was the biggest disappointment of my first visit, it was the standout of my last and what would have me return in a heartbeat.

Eye fillet with all the trimmings. Picture: Tony Gough

Our drinks recs were tailored and the options vast: new and old world wines from Italy and Aus, classic and crafted cocktails and a mix of non-booze options which include wine, sodas and no-gronis and gin and tonics.

A 2013 Nero d’Avola lets you drink a 10-year old wine affordably at $25 a glass.

Housemade, complimentary snacks, bookend your visit.

To start, coffee-cured olives and warm from the oven crusty sourdough swiped in olive oil or a fava bean spread get us giddy for what’s to come. Snap-crisp crostoli (fried dough dusted in powdered sugar) and shortbreads send us on our way.

Everything in between was on-point. A swordfish carpaccio wreath bordering a buttermilk pond is a celebration of veg and herb in all its glorious forms: fresh from the patch dill and radicchio, a vibrant slick of chive oil, celery pickled sweet to poppin’ good pleasure and salty capers, which tie it together. Shame the fish is tough in places. Pork, fennel and chilli sausage hunks hero a satisfying lentil stew, which I can only imagine nonna wholesomely stirring out the back.

World famous, I mean Melbourne’s favourite, tiramisu. Picture: Tony Gough.

Grossi Grill has been a city icon for decades. Picture: Tony Gough

Charred blue-eye cod, cooked to perfection, wades in a sublime sunny saffron sauce. While we couldn’t justify another glass, our waiter poured us a nip of gutsy Sicilian zibibbo, rich in apricot kernel freshness, so we could try the rockin’ food-wine coupling.

Other dazzlers include Grossi’s stalwart spinach, tomato and ricotta crepe domed with whipped parmesan foam (a feat in itself), the top layer a simple yet stunning display of Italy’s colours.

The eye fillet, blushing bashfully shy inside; sizzled and smoked on that grill; and spaghetti flown from Florence, swimming with schools of clams, prawns, cod and briny mussels and red sauce.

As for whether that tiramisu is deserving of its brag-worthy title? It’s up there. Sporting a traditional cloudlike mascarpone and coffee-soaked sponge; it’s not overpowering and hidden with surprise chocolate bits. Elite in anyone’s books.

Grossi has earned the cred over decades and holds to a standard that’s nothing short of brilliant.