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Di Stasio Carlton promises smart-casual neighbourhood dining with some glam touches (think white-clothed tables, Reko Rennie artwork and Negronis served on individual silver trays). Chef Federico Congiu, who has spent five years with Di Stasio, has tinkered with the perfect margherita recipe, making his own jersey milk mozzarella fior di latte and working with Yarra Valley producers to grow the plumpest, ripest San Marzano tomatoes. There are nine pizzas on the menu, all baked in a wood-fired oven flown in from Verona.

This CBD wine bar is an open-plan space, all dark and woody, the bar segueing into the kitchen where you can grab a ringside seat to watch Dave Verheul (ex Town Mouse) sweating it out over a wood oven and grill that approximate the temperature at the earth’s core. Strap in for a delightfully Mediterranean feed – from the pork sausage casarecce with fennel and cime de rapa to the lamb rump with macadamia, green olive and rosemary.

It’s Mediterranean charm with a grungey twist – find Orlo (and its underground alter ego The Cordial Club) inside a historic 1880s red brick building on Collingwood’s Oxford Street. Dine on octopus skewers, squid and wagyu flank steak that have all been smoked on the charcoal grill. Once you’re done wining (local drops, of course) and dining, settle in downstairs at The Cordial Club for a nightcap or two. 

San Telmo doesn’t muck around. This steakhouse lays its carnivorous scene at the entrance, where some impressive bits of cow sit dry ageing behind glass. It’s a memorable welcome, the voluptuously marbled fat a promise in writing of good things to come. Step further into this temple de carne in Melbourne’s parliament barrio and you’ll come face to face with the open kitchen and its centrepiece parilla, where glowing hot coals are shovelled around by a brow-mopping chef who really ought to be paid danger money.