The best Italian restaurants in Melbourne

It’s been some years since gents were expected to keep their jackets on at all times, but it’s good to see Grossi Florentino is a restaurant that continues to sweat the small stuff. The grand Mural Room is one of Melbourne’s last bastions of lavish European dining charm where the lighting is set to dim, and the mood set upon arrival by the proffering of a handbag stool. 

Città sees Ronnie Di Stasio return to the neighbourhood where he pioneered Rosati in the heady days shortly before the fringe benefits tax and the stock market crash cruelled the excesses of the 1980s. And the augurs are good. It’s a place of arrestingly clean-lined brutalism – concrete walls and pillars, a remarkable terrazzo floor. White-jacketed bartenders shake things behind a slab of white marble. Red leather chairs make like a mid-century Thornbury espresso bar, a younger Di Stasio’s stomping ground. It’s a gallery and salon, as well as a bar and restaurant.

At this refined Italian diner in Carlton, dishes change with the seasons to focus on local quality produce and regionally inspired Italian flavours. Twirl your fork around pappardelle with boar ragu, smoked daikon, candied walnuts and dark chocolate (yes, you read that right), and the crowd favourite since Al Dente’s inception – the tortellini cacio e pepe. The desserts are just as fantastical, with creations like lait e miel (milk and honey) and chocolate, hazelnut, coffee and truffle, playing unique riffs on authentic Italian flavours.

Melbourne’s a town that does pasta either really well or terribly badly. Tipo 00 is a stand-out member of the first category and just as well for them. Pappardelle, thick ribbons boasting the suppleness of Nadia Comaneci and the right resistance to the teeth, is jumbled up with rabbit braised in white wine, with the toasty crunch of hazelnuts and green specks of marjoram. This is happiness in a bowl. 

Il Bacaro serves up a modern twist on classic Italian fare in its small, crowded restaurant. We're not talking foams or sands or molecular tech on the plate. The seared quail comes with caramelised figs and blue cheese ice cream, and the roasted duck breast and baked duck leg with blueberry and coco beans. Subtle creativity and high-end dining are the name of the game here. 

This Fitzroy newcomer’s specialty shines a spotlight on the northern Italian region of Piedmont, which is located at the foot of the Alps and home to some of the boot nation’s most prized culinary exports. The team behind Alta Trattoria includes Luke Drum (Carlton Wine Room), chef McKay Wilday (Victoria by Farmers Daughters), Carlo Grossi (Ombra, Grossi Florentino) and vino expert James Tait (King and Godfree), so you just know the food here's going to be ace. Though there's more than just pasta here, the classic trattoria-style dishes are a knock-out. Think wild rabbit ragu with tajarin, gnocchi with chestnuts and lemon, roast beef ravioli with mushrooms, and more. 

Walking down Hardware Lane means running the gauntlet of cheek-by-jowl waiters trying to entice potential diners into their venues with proffered 15-page illustrated menus. But not all venues rely on their front-of-house to charm the masses on the hoof, and restaurants like The Hardware Club prove this with one-page menus full of straight-up hits.

Rocco’s combines the warmth of an Italian mom-and-pop restaurant with a menu that is elevated comfort food – every dish is meticulously curated. Rocco’s crew billed them the ‘Italian Maccas’ and the best part about that is you’ll be too full and satisfied after to consider any fast-food chaser.

This lively Sicilian joint, where the music pumps and the snacks come out thick and fast, has fast become a Lygon Street favourite. You’ll want to book nice and early – there’s not a day Bar Idda isn’t packed. For a crash course on Sicilian food, turn your menu over – Bar Idda, along with sketching out a map of the region, have provided an illustrated timeline. 

Gosh, the Italians do glamour well, and Bar Carolina, the newest addition to Joe Mammone’s boutique Italian stable exudes Latin charm from its terrazzo foyer to its bar clad in charcoal steel. And we haven’t even mentioned the quorum of liltingly accented waiters who marshal the crowds one ‘ciao bella’ at a time.

Marameo is destined to be catnip to the corporate army’s junior recruits. It’s not a place for people still practising their restaurant manners, but the phrase “cheeky Italian”, found somewhat alarmingly on the website, ought to shine some light on its regime. The food pitch from chef Geoff Martin goes contemporary, fun and progressive, albeit with the same rollcall of showy ingredients at the heart of good Italian dining. 

Di Stasio Carlton finally opened the doors of their Faraday Street pizza place and it promises smart-casual neighbourhood dining with some glam touches (think white-clothed tables, Reko Rennie artwork and Negronis served on individual silver trays). For 18 months, the team tinkered with the perfect margherita recipe, making their 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, and larger plates such as pork cutlets, fried tripe and hand-made pasta.

This quasi-secret laneway haunt boasts implicitly of Melbourne’s fabulousness. Con Christopoulos has plenty to do with Melbourne’s fabulousness. The City Wine Shop, European, Kirk’s Wine Bar, Neapoli, Siglo… the list goes on. From Gill’s looser European menu they’ve drilled down into the particular delights of regional Italy here.

What we have here is not so humble as an osteria. Sure, it has an underlying rustic Italian brief, exemplified by the chargrilled whole octopus brutishly splayed over a sauce made of the fiery Calabrian spreadable salami, 'nduja. On the other end of the spectrum, lamb tartare arrives gussied up for the red carpet with a custardy froth of smoked eggplant, purple Congo potato crisps and winks of rosemary oil. 

Here they're doing the kind of devotedly rustic, no-frills Italian food that you can feel doing you good, body and soul. Let’s call it Italian penicillin. Its strength is its simplicity. The brutishly ugly, utterly delicious cauliflower fritters are a nod and a wink that this is Rosa as she is known and loved. Just as good under the list of antipasti are the grilled chicken livers, interleaved with fat cubes of fried bread.

It’s all in the pacing. It’s the make or break factor of great dining, and it's something Rinaldo 'Ronnie' Di Stasio’s mainstay Italian has been nailing for 26 years. A three-course lunch can take four hours – maybe three if you’re just here for a glass of Champagne and a plate of calamari. This is a restaurant that’s well and truly earned its reputation as one of Melbourne’s greats. 

Capitano, brought to you by the Bar Liberty crew, is bigger, brighter and louder than its Johnston Street sibling, offering far more approachable food and booze but keeping the quality, fun and delightful service. Capitano is a fundamentally social place, the menu’s purpose is to lubricate and satisfy rather than draw focus from your companions. The inspiration here is Italian-American, and you can see the influence in the vodka sauce on one of two pasta dishes. But fundamentally, Capitano is all Melbourne. 

Since opening sometime back in the Qing dynasty in 2011, Pinotta has calmly plied its trade as the Platonic ideal of the neighbourhood haunt. The troika of good, unfussy Italian food, a punchy and intelligent wine list and service sprinkled with X-factor fairy dust works a convincing game.

Cicciolina is an indispensable bastion of south-side dining: an ace of Acland Street. St Kilda has changed since Cicciolina opened in 1993. The section of Acland Street that Cicciolina sits on, a one-time boho hotspot, is now reduced to a cut-copy mall. Stars of the menu may sound uncomplicated and a little retro, but that's part of its assured charm. Cicciolina is an institution, not a revolution. 

The name Pietro Barbagallo should be familiar to anyone who appreciates a Neapolitan-style pizza. His new venture, is a slightly more adult offering, taking the focus away from pizzas and putting forward some lesser-known traditional Sicilian plates. Mr Pietro’s charm comes from its quiet confidence and understated décor. 

This gourmet food outlet offers a wide range of deli and liquor items to suit any budget, and satisfy any shopping list.

Just off Lygon Street, DOC is a pizza bar that means business. At the casual diner portion of this Italian empire (which also includes DOC Delicatessen and DOC Espresso), thin crispy bases make the perfect partner for the simple core Italian ingredients – buffalo mozzarella, fior di latte, and Italian smallgoods. Wash it down with a Campari or Italian beer, and finish up with a dessert pizza. 

The grand old dame of Melbourne's restaurant scene offers comfort food at comfort prices (unless you're gluten intolerant, then you shall seek little comfort here). There's something special about sitting at a 70-year-old bench on a 70-year-old stool and looking at a 70-year-old menu while you shovel into a sliding colossus of lasagne ($16). We recommend it highly. A white shirt, not so much.

Eggplant melanzane? Foil butter sachets? Unapologetically old school with mod-Melbourne lines, Lupino is hammering out pan-Italian classics like they’re going out of style. It’s all polished concrete, terracotta tiles and holy hell – is that macramé? Sure is, and whilst the hard lines, echo factor, and city locale mean that by day it's all business, by night its a soft-lit haven for casual rendezvous. 

You know Guy Grossi’s joints. He’s got Italian fine diner Grossi Florentino – home of the $50 pasta entrée – and Cellar Bar downstairs, the old school trattoria where flirting knows no age limits. But you can forget about both of those when looking to Ombra, a salumi bar with polished concrete floors, and bareback tables designed for building makeshift meals of pickles and meats. 

It feels like this is the place that Lygon St, needed. It's inspired by Italy, the country who’s immigrants gave Melbourne hospitality its heart, but unlike the old-school Italian cafés that define this strip of Carlton, Heartattack looks forward to a bright future of casual eating and drinking, not back to a nostalgic past. 

Welcome to Bar Nonno: Northcote’s first biodynamic wine bar with a strong, traditional Italian focus and even stronger traditional Italian charm. The entrance feels like a retail shop until you get past the racks and hit the dining room filled with dark, deep reds and polished floorboards. 

Three decades in the business and Mario's is still going strong on Brunswick Street. Take the window seat and order a heaping bowl of spag bol or slick fettuccine pesto with some house wine for a classic Fitzroy experience. We love the service here, the black vest-clad waiters are old-school (the head waiter Massimo di Sora has been around since day one) and can often be seen chatting to regulars.

Lagotto is for the hard-working residents of North Fitzroy who need a comforting day-to-night place – a café, restaurant, wine bar and food store – that can massage away the stresses of the corporate world, the annoyance of Linton in HR and the drama of who took the last of the oat ‘mylk’ in the staff kitchenette.