When the crew from Donna Maria shut the doors on their Flinders restaurant later this month, they’re wasting no time moving on. In Mount Eliza, their next venture Bau Bau is ready to spring to life, bringing a slightly different tempo of Italian dining to the Mornington Peninsula.

By default, the new 30-seater is more intimate than Donna Maria’s 80 seats. Owners Mathew Guthrie, Clinton Trevisi and James Langley (also behind Bistro Elba and Patsy’s) are happily embracing that with a more refined menu of regional Italian dishes, often hard to find in Australia.

“I’m not saying we want to get the tweezers out for every dish, but there’s an element that leans more into presentation,” says chef Daniel Lidgard, who lists Donna Maria, Pt Leo Restaurant and Attica on his CV.

At Bau Bau, he’s serving chicken cooked in the style of porchetta, a popular Tuscan treatment where the bird is stuffed with pancetta, chicken livers, sage and thyme. Casunziei, a filled pasta from Italy’s north-east, are presented as eye-catching twin sets: one side of the parcel contains beetroot, the other fresh curd cheese. More simple is the orecchiette tossed with Flinders mussels and ’nduja, and the “scalded” tuna, rare in the middle and dressed with late-season tomatoes.

Produce-forward and rustically Italian, it’s food that matches the River Cafe-like interiors, itself a postcard of ’90s London cool. A bold blue feature wall pops against the white linen and cream walls. A small cluster of tables, with leather and chrome chairs, ring the brass-clad kitchen that juts into the dining room. A mural on a wall outside is the most colourful addition.

“We wanted a really elegant space, not something maximalist,” says Guthrie.

The team chose to swap Flinders for Mount Eliza, 20 minutes closer to Melbourne, because trade is less seasonal and there’s more affordable housing for staff. As soon as their liquor licence comes through, they’ll start trading.

The restaurant will trial offering prix-fixe menus only (three courses $120, two courses at lunch $90), with up to four choices for each course.

Guthrie says the move is about a more honest style of hospitality. With a set menu, he explains, “you’re not upsold, you’re not rushed out. It [feels] much more hospitable and less transactional”.

Don’t be confused by the name, similar to that used for a pocket-like steamed bun from China. It’s the Italian equivalent of saying “woof woof”.

“We wanted something Italian but lighthearted,” says Guthrie.

Bau Bau will open mid-April daily, noon-9pm.

Shop 1, 18 Ranelagh Drive, Mount Eliza, baubaudining.com.au