Split red gum clue to what’s hot inside Italy on a Plate

You want authentic Italian? The misspellings on this rural Victorian joint’s menu suggest you’ve come to the right place.

The pizza at Italy on a Plate is superb.

Not too far from the monotonous freeway connecting Melbourne and Sydney is the Victorian village of Milawa, known far and wide as home to Australia’s second largest family-owned wine company, Brown Brothers.

Brown Brothers is to Milawa what Hershey’s is to … Hershey, Pennsylvania. So it is a little odd to flick though the wine list at Italy on a Plate and find its wine listed as “Broun Brothers”. Pedantic? No, the menu and wine list is completely chockers with howlers such as “beveridge” and “costumers”. I guess you might say it adds a certain touch of authenticity to a place positioning itself as a little slice of Italia in Victoria’s northeast.

The pitch: Italy in the Aussie countryside.

The reality: On a corner site, in an expansive old red brick building with broad verandas, IoaP occupies a quintessentially Australian piece of heritage architecture. There can’t be many such buildings in Australia piping the melodramatic, orchestral Roman pop of Johnny Dorelli to the veranda on a Wednesday lunch. Particularly as blokes in utes with kelpies in the back go past on their way to the farm.

It’s a big space filled with all sorts of Italian food and wine paraphernalia and many tables. Rather dark during the day, actually. A specials board tells us about duck-filled ravioli and saltimbocca. But in spring there’s a lot of terrace seating, and that’s where you want to be.

The cuisine: It’s fairly old-school Italian with a substantial pasta/risotto section, of course, augmented by a sensible pizza collection, including a glammed-up version of the Hawaiian, the Tropicale. Some of it sounds simple and good. Some, a case of more is more. Such as: “Veal scaloppine with porcini, Tasmanian scallops, Queensland tiger prawns, white wine veal stock, roasted garlic and cream reduction rested on pane di casa croutons sided with broccoli affocati with sage and burnt butter.” A description and a whole new verb.

Highlights: Pizza. Absolutely superb pizza. And the litmus test is the margherita, which we pimp with extra ­buffalo mozzarella. Presto, the $26 Margherita Artigianale. Two clues. One is a stack of very desirable split red gum out on the veranda; the other a wood-burning pizza oven full of glowing coals at noon. The dough is complex yet light, crisp at the base yet deliciously chewy and slightly blistered; the tomatoes are hand-crushed; the mozzarella is molten and freshly placed on the pizza at the end; the basil fresh. This would be one of the finest pizzas in regional Victoria, plain and simple, a slice of Campanian rustic beauty.

Lowlights: Not a lowlight but nothing to write home about is the scaloppine alla Romana. The prosciutto-layered veal is a bit firm for me but in a white wine sauce with sauteed silverbeet and mashed potato on the side, fine. The mare misto, yes, an odd main course to order out here, I concede, is a riot of different seafoods with an anchovy-filled arancino fried in slightly stale oil. But there’s good grilled calamari and prawns, a piece of white fish fillet, some clams and not so great scallops, all on a kind of chopped salad with lemon on the side. Stick with the pizza and possibly the pasta, which is, anecdotally, good.

Will I need a food dictionary? Not really.

The damage: Reasonable.

Italy on a Plate
Address: Shop 1 1594 Snow Road, Milawa, Victoria | Phone: [phone] | Hours
lunch, dinner, Wed-Sun | Score: 3 out of 5