No prizes for guessing what Studio Amaro’s specialty is. The slick new day-to-night Chapel Street eatery from Commune Group (Firebird, Moonhouse, Tokyo Tina, New Quarter) is ready to splash more than 40 bottles of the bitter Italian herbal liqueur into your glass, from acacia-aged Piedmontese grappa to a licorice-scented Sardinian take.

“Italian drinking culture is sick,” says the group’s Simon Blacher. “They just get it, they don’t overcomplicate it. We love the explosion of amaro. It all just makes a lot of sense.”

The Italian immersion doesn’t stop there. The two-level space, which opens September 1, was designed by Wendy Bergman, who worked with local makers Steve Edwards and Please Please Please to inject the new building with tasteful retro touches and subtle Italiana cues.

The walnut-topped tables of the ground-level dining room are stained a gentle Italian-flag green, and huge red decals wrapping floor-to-soaring-ceiling windows throw crimson light around the space. Timber panelling is a big theme, and mustard corduroy banquettes are set at primo elbow-resting height.

In the basement is what co-owner Blacher calls the “underground amaro lair”, a dimly lit bar with rippled amber glass panels, velvet curtains, and finishes in boucle and chocolate leather. Vintage DJ decks were restored by mid-century specialist Angelucci, ready to spin Italian-disco tunes.

Italian Australian head chef Daniel Migliaccio (ex-Hanoi Hannah) is responsible for Commune Group’s first move away from Asian cuisine.

“Melbourne has grown up with Italian food,” says Blacher. “You don’t have to explain it, you don’t have to reinvent things. A good bowl of pasta is a good bowl of pasta. A good cotoletta is a good cotoletta. You don’t have to put some ridiculous ingredient on top. It’s a classic. Do it well, use good ingredients, and you’ll get it right.”

As at the group’s other spots, the menu will be family-style and – borrowing from the success of sibling Firebird – much of the cooking will be over a wood-fired grill.

“Everything tastes better over fire,” says Blacher. “After Firebird and a couple of other restaurants, we realised it’s just the way forward.”

Snapper fillet is grilled over flame, paired with a burnt tomato and fennel broth. A half charcoal chook comes with salmoriglio, a zippy Sicilian sauce made here with black garlic. Eggplant for caponata is char-grilled, and house-made pork and fennel oregano sausage takes on a little wood smoke.

Torn buffalo bocconcini with bottarga, lemon and chilli calls for a serve of fluffy sourdough focaccia, a recipe six months in the making, while deep-fried anchovy-mozzarella jaffles are finished with pecorino.

Mafaldine and conchiglie pasta are made using an in-house extruder, and steaks arrive with cacio e pepe butter or jus made from pink peppercorns pinched from the streets of Prahran.

Hazelnut tartufo is a chocolate-coated dome of nostalgia, and a seasonal blood orange olive oil cake is topped with sour cream and cherries.

Limoncello margaritas and parmesan fat-washed martinis headline the drinks list, and one-litre carafes of house friulano and refosco, from MDI in the Murray Darling Basin, ring in at a fairly decent $68. Another glass of that namesake liqueur, though, might be more appropriate.

Studio Amaro will open daily noon-late from September 1.

168 Chapel Street, Windsor, studioamaro.com.au