Score: 14/20

IT'S a smart - and usually expensive - restaurant that serves an amuse bouche, that petite, complimentary morsel to arouse the palate and make the diner feel better about the 200 per cent wine mark-ups he or she is about to swallow.

You know the deal: for a while there you couldn't go anywhere in Melbourne without an espresso cup of porcini cappuccino arriving with a flourish of waiter smarm and the words, "The chef has sent this out for you this evening with his compliments."

Bless him.

It's a brave restaurant - anywhere - that takes the concept, dispatches with the pretence, adds a bit of value to the diner's bill, provides nourishment rather than tantalisation and serves, as an amuse, a little bowl of tripe.

But there it was: a small white bowl - on a small white plate, with a small silver spoon (this restaurant has cutlery issues) - half-filled with some of the best honeycomb tripe I've eaten in years. Long, springy strips of reticulum cooked with aromatics, garlic, tomato and parsley to the point that the subtle flavour of the meat hadn't been killed - nor the unique texture - yet the sauce developed a wondrous, sunny flavour of southern Italy.

Hang on. This isn't Italy and it isn't some renowned inner-city bolthole of Latin gastronomy. It's Springvale Road, Forest Hills.

The name - Agrodolce (literally bitter sweet) - says Italy, but the location says suburban thoroughfare, while the 1970s building - exposed sand-blasted brick, cedar ceilings with arched doorways, colonial windows and raw timber mantelpieces - says country motel reception centre.

It's all a bit odd.

But in an age when design and architecture seem to come first, with the food and service almost an afterthought - the "have building, must fill it" syndrome of modern development - maybe there's nothing that funny after all about a chef and his wife, both demonstrably good at their respective jobs, opening a first restaurant together in an unlikely building in an unlikely location.

The story so far: the couple who opened this place last year both worked at Florentino. He's a cook, she's a waiter and a restaurant of their own was the dream.

They should be packed, although despite rhapsodic praise elsewhere only weeks before, they do just 10 covers the Wednesday night we eat there.

Wake up, Forest Hills.

The service is delightful, professional, but untested; our waiter - the co-owner - was under no pressure whatsoever. I hope they have good backup and systems in place to cope with greater demand.

The wine list is simple but sensible and really modestly marked up (or, like the couple grooving to Dean Martin and other Brat Packers at the next table, you can BYO a bottle or, in their case, three, for modest corkage).

And the food's great, generally speaking, and thank heavens the menu's in English, not mangled Italian.

A beef carpaccio ($15.50) announces the arrival of micro herbs in Forest Hills; they're scattered randomly and prettily over the quality, just-seared and very thin slices of almost rare beef. There are shavings of fresh horseradish and quartered baby beets soused in vincotto, providing a pleasing sweet/fruity counterpoint to the earthy natural flavour of the root vegetable.

A special entree - three football-shaped dollops of baccala mantecato (salt cod pounded with olive oil and garlic) - comes with superb quartered figs ($12.50). The fish paste is drizzled with a lively orange dressing. The fish is powerful and not for the salt-shy: a little goes a long way. Beyond the fruit, the dish needs crostini or some other kind of crisp wafer-like foil, because the table bread here is not good.

From the small pasta section, we get another glimpse of the chef's touch for authentic braises. A house-made parsley pappardelle - not the best handmade pasta in Melbourne, but pretty good all the same - is teamed with a buttery, wet braise of rabbit meat with carrot, celery, garlic, white wine, parsley and goodness knows what else. It's really very good, the meat lively in texture rather than having given up the ghost after too long in the pot. It's $15 (or $20 as a main).

It's another rustic side trip down a knobbly old back road that has us fighting for the right to order the kid. The baby goat, that is. Done, I imagine, as a kind of wet roast with white wine, stock, herbs, garlic and a hint of chilli, a generous serve of gnarly goaty pieces of meat on the bone comes to the table with a few beans and a few peeled, large kipfler potatoes, which have been boiled and finished in the braising juices ($28.50). Clean flavours, balance and crackerjack seasoning go with the tender, glossy but not flaccid meat.

The fish of the day - blue eye - is more tricked-up and not quite as memorable. You get a good, meaty piece of crisp-skinned, pan-fried fillet with a minty salsa verde sitting on a combination of fresh borlotti beans and carrot slices, all washing around in a rich "vanilla emulsion", a mustard-yellow, viscous butter sauce with distinctive vanillin flavour ($28.50). And a few more micro-herbs. There is possibly one thing too many happening here, but it remains an impressive dish.

Despite good glassware, napery and crockery, we need to chip in and help the Agrodolce people get some new cutlery, because they ask you to use all sorts of funny things that even my little hands find tiny.

Agrodolce is possibly the only restaurant in Forest Hills with ossau iraty on its cheese list; or serving parmigiano reggiano as a table cheese (isn't that the stuff you grate on spaghetti?). Bravo.

Desserts went 50/50: a jellied "terrine" of various citruses and mint ($12) with Cointreau syrup worked well, although its honey ice-cream was a little bland.

An individual pavlova ($12) had moved on to that chewy stage that makes the meringue almost impossible to eat without a knife and fork; its "Frangelico cream" was way too subtle and over-used for me, but I liked the shavings of toasted coconut, even if I'm uncertain what it all had to do with a tart apple and rhubarb stew underneath it all.

I bet his canoli are good.

Compared to some of the best Italian food in Melbourne, Agrodolce's stacks up extremely well and represents fine value; compared to the vast majority of rubbish paraded as Italian food - particularly in the outer suburbs - this is a revelation.

Try this ugly duckling of a restaurant, if you can. It has integrity. And ask for the tripe when you book.

Score: 1-9: Unacceptable. 10-11: Just OK, some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: Outstanding. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.