“Dark” is the word that chef Joseph Vargetto keeps using to describe Bianchetto, the new bar next to his Kew restaurant, Mister Bianco. Apart from flickering projections of 1960s Italian films, much of the room is inky black. Then, above the long hardwood bar, track lighting puts the bartender mixing your drink in the spotlight, literally.

It sums up the restraint of the 38-seat cocktail bar that Vargetto has worked on with star bartender Orlando Marzo.

Despite being the final flourish on his recently relocated restaurant (the name “Bianchetto” refers to “little Bianco”), Vargetto is billing the bar as a destination in its own right.

The menu is all about snack-sized items to go with a drink: fried olives filled with spicy Calabrian spread ’nduja, oysters with melon granita, potato rosti with smoked squacquerone cheese. These aren’t share plates that become dinner.

The heftiest dish is scaccia, a Sicilian street-food that’s also another entry into Melbourne’s fancy sandwich catalogue. Based on the Italian word for flattening something, Bianchetto’s version involves wood-fired focaccia, mortadella and scamorza, pressed like a toasted sandwich.

With all those salty snacks, the Americano trolley will get a workout, mixing the classic Italian drink at the table and dispatching small bowls of crisps.

Marzo, a globally acclaimed bartender who won awards while at Restaurant Lume and now has his own bottled cocktail brand Loro, settled on eight Italian-inspired cocktails for the list. Among the new creations is the Sicilian Sour, combining marsala with lemon and tomato water (a kitchen byproduct), and a whisky soda boosted by Italian liqueur strega. It’s a nod to Sophia Loren singing You Want to be American in the film It Started in Naples.

Vargetto says Bianchetto is what Kew needs. “The area is growing, it’s getting younger. There’s plenty of wine bars, but there’s no real cocktail bar.”

Those visiting for a nightcap can kill two birds with one of the boozy desserts. There’s an amaro-spiked gelato cake, limoncello and negroni jellies served in a small box, and chocolate cigars with whisky-caramel centres.

Open Tue-Sat 6pm-late.

26-28 Cotham Road, Kew, misterbianco.com.au