13 Italian restaurants in Melbourne guaranteed to fuel your fire

With slick new openings, classic cucinas and masterful high-end dining, there’s a lot to love in Melbourne’s Italian restaurant world.

Melbourne’s Little Italy has long magnetised the city’s visitors, but the lasting legacy of the city’s sizable Italian community extends well beyond the borders of Carlton. It created the blueprint for Melbourne’s world renowned cafe culture, and laid the groundwork for future generations of chefs to create Italian-inspired fusion food.

Today, Victoria’s capital, is awash with Italian eateries of every kind. From vibrant family-friendly pub-style osterie and glamorous Milanese-inspired CBD restaurants to cosy farm-to-fork Sardinian eateries. Eat your way around the city with this shortlist of Italian restaurants in Melbourne.

The shortlist

Best date spot: Di Stasio
Hidden gem: Da Noi
Hottest new opening: Elio’s Place

1. Studio Amaro

hands getting food on the plate using fork at Studio Amaro — Dig into specialty Italian pasta at Studio Amaro. (Image: Julia Sansone)

On a strip of Windsor’s Chapel Street, heaving with bars and restaurants Studio Amaro’s cool Dean Martin vibe is all its own. Sunny by day, moody by night, its sleek design shines in retro shades of olive, burgundy and mustard, with a wall of Amaro bottles shimmering in the light. Amaro? That’s the bittersweet Italian herbal aperitivo or digestivo (post-dinner) liqueur. You’ll find around 50 varieties to sip neat or in a cocktail.

Chef Daniel Migliaccio’s open kitchen is fired up. Scoop up the whipped ricotta with addictive house-made focaccia or indulge in a chunky curve of grilled pork and fennel sausage. Rigatoni arrabiata comes tomato-infused, chilli-laced and dotted with stracciatella. Mains are generous – saltimbocca, veal cotoletta (cutlet), fish – with Italian flourishes.

Post-dinner, head downstairs to the basement bar, where a DJ spins vinyl in a disco lounge.

Cuisine: Italian

Average price: $$$

Atmosphere: Sultry

Location: 168 Chapel St, Windsor

2. Puttanesca Osteria

a hand slicing pizza at Puttanesca Osteria, Italian restaurants Melbourne — Devour one slice after another at Puttanesca Osteria. (Image: Supplied)

Puttanesca Osteria in Kew’s Clifton Hotel evokes a regional Italian eatery to a T. It sprawls across multiple rooms, with dark timbers, terrazzo floors, arched doorways and iconic film posters.

Culinary classics stud the menu (think crunchy arancini with melting centres, pillowy gnocchi, ‘mamma’s’ beef meatballs and Roman-style pizzas with crisp, charred bases), and there’s an inviting, family-friendly atmosphere too.

Cuisine: Italian

Average price: $$$

Atmosphere: Family-friendly trattoria

Location: 99 High St, Kew

3. Luci

the sleek and modern dining interior of Luci restaurant in Melbourne — Luci is within the confines of the Grand Hall of the former 1930s Equity Chambers Building. (Image: Hilton Melbourne Little Queen Street)

A fabulous space in the CBD – the Grand Hall of the former 1930s Equity Chambers Building – is home to Luci’s, where the polished marble, sculptural light fittings and tall ceilings offer a sleek and modern feel. Produce-driven, with discreet style and service, Luci has the polish of a Milanese restaurant. While the menu is Italian-inflected you’ll find other Mod Oz flourishes too, from crostini topped with prosciutto and Davidson plum to rabbit ravioli garnished with Geraldton wax oil.

Cuisine: Modern Australian

Average price: $$$$

Atmosphere: Members lounge vibes

Location: 472 Bourke St, Melbourne

4. Officina Gastronomica Italiana

an exclusive wine selection at Officina Gastronomica Italiana — Pick wine off the shelf for a full-on Italian experience. (Image: @HiSylvia)

In a ritzy pocket of Hawksburn, surrounded by designer fashion stores and breathtakingly expensive baby boutiques, Officina Gastronomica Italiana (OGI) offers the full-on Italian experience, low-key and laid-back but lively all at once. Expect a rustic interior, all stripped-back brick and hard-edge timber stools, and a little bit of theatre from the Italian waiters.

Start the day with a breakfast bruschetta or just caffé e biscotti. Sample fresh panini, house-made pasta and salads for lunch. And indulge with dishes such as squid ink spaghettoni with spanner crab and chilli, or pumpkin ravioli with goat’s cheese and mustard fruit at dinner. It seems modest, but it’s super fresh and confidently cooked.

The wine focus is centred on Emilia-Romagna and features artisanal production.

Cuisine: Italian

Average price: $$$

Atmosphere: Elegantly rustic

Location: 532/534 Malvern Rd, Prahran

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5. Al Dente Enoteca

a plate of pasta at Al Dente Enoteca — Savour elegant dishes at Al Dente Enoteca.

Al Dente’s main dining room, ‘Enoteca’, is an elegant and stylishly modern space with generously spaced tables; the second dining room (named ‘Sapori’) is for those who like to be a little more cheek-to-jowl.

Chef/owners Andrea Vignali and Davide Bonadiman focus on fresh, seasonal and local produce, though pasta is the standout star here (particularly the house signature, tortelloni cacio e pepe). After all, it was the success of Vignali’s Covid pasta delivery service that helped to launch this restaurant in 2021. But Al Dente offers much more, with dishes that riff on regional Italian classics while incorporating unexpected ingredients, like exquisitely fresh burrata paired with heirloom beetroot, cashews, and merlot vinegar; Victorian dry-aged duck served with Kakadu plum; and kangaroo tartare with mustard, capers, and applewood smoke. You’ll also find an interesting wine list and attentive service.

Cuisine: Modern Australian

Average price: $$$$

Atmosphere: Chic and inviting

Location: 161 Nicholson St, Carlton

6. Di Stasio

the Italian restaurant interior of Di Stasio in St Kilda — The classic fine Italian diner stands out for its sophisticated interior. (Image: Di Stasio St Kilda Photography)

Take your pick – the original in St Kilda, the cool Carlton iteration or the modish Spring Street version. Di Stasio restaurants set the bar high (and they’re a little bit spendy).

Di Stasio St Kilda has burnished its food and service credentials over decades with a classic, high-end Italian menu.  Di Stasio Pizzeria in Carlton is younger, even a little hip, with its pasta/pizza menu and leafy, sculpture-studded courtyard. Di Stasio Città is the arty, Milan-channelling, hard-edge city outpost in Spring Street. It’s über-chic and you’ll find no surprises on the menu,but it’s all faultlessly executed.

Cuisine: Italian

Average price: $$$$

Atmosphere: Fine dining

Location: 45 Spring Street, Melbourne (Di Stasio Città)

7. Alta Trattoria

Italian dining at Alta Trattoria, Fitzroy — This Italian restaurant draws diners for its cosy understated luxury. (Image: Alta Trattoria)

If you’re not familiar with Piedmont’s cuisine, this is your opportunity to get acquainted. Alta Trattoria is resolutely understated with white tablecloths, simple chairs and quality glassware – just as it might be in Italy. Piedmontese favourites feature on the menu… anchovies, vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce, originally from this region in Italy’s northwest) and rabbit, all expertly prepared and precision plated. Don’t leave without trying the tajarin – an egg-rich pasta made from thin ribbons of dough. Piedmont is famed for its wines, and they shine on this tightly curated list.

Cuisine: Piedmontese

Average price: $$$$

Atmosphere: Schmick

Location: Ground Floor Rear/274 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

8. Figlia

the Italian wine bar at Figlia, Melbourne — The elegant wine bar provides a laid-back atmosphere for all-day drinks. (Image: Supplied)

A new offshoot of Melbourne’s pizza royalty, Tipo 00 Figlia has plenty of knockout sourdough pizzas on the list. They really are bubbly and charred, light and loaded with excellent, though sometimes unexpected, toppings. Think wild boar sausage or cavolo nero with stracciatella and fermented cabbage.

Don’t underestimate the rest of the menu, though. You could make a meal of the stuzzichini (snacks) and antipasti. Crispy little cacio e pepe arancini, roasted carrots with mascarpone, octopus skewers, fresh oysters and polenta focaccia. Secondi might include a whole fish or a hearty wagyu steak. The fit-out treads between wine bar, bentwood-chair bistro and low-key industrial, but is definitely welcoming. It also has an Italian-leaning wine list, including carafes.

Cuisine: Italian

Average price: $$$

Atmosphere: Refined yet convivial

Location: 335 Lygon St, Brunswick East

9. Bar Idda

the exterior of Bar Idda, Italian restaurant in Melbourne — Bar Idda is a family-style trattoria in Melbourne.

Well before White Lotus alerted many to the charms of Sicily, Bar Idda was flying the flag in its cute corner store in Brunswick. This cosy, family-style trattoria continues to nail its Sicilian menu with food that feels genuinely cucina casalinga.

From the juicy green Sicilian olives and crunchy arancini to twirly pasta with a slow-cooked beef and pork ragu, you feel in safe hands. There’s fresh fish, of course, and meatballs with that particular Arab influence of pine nuts, currants and cinnamon that weaves through Sicilian cuisine.

The salad with chicory, celery and sultana is a must. Nonna would never let you leave without dolce, so order up. A tiramisu-flavoured cannolo (or two) is possibly the way to go. Sicilian wines are on the list.

Cuisine: Sicilian

Average price: $$$

Atmosphere: Homely

Location: 132 Lygon St, Brunswick East

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10. Elio’s Place

lunch and dinner share plates at Elio’s Place, Italian restaurants Melbourne — Tuck into European-inspired share plates at Elio’s Place. (Image: Steven Chau)

An all-day bistro in the heart of the city, Elio’s Place transcends Europe’s borders with its laidback menu, though it’s heavily skewed towards the Bel Paese. Come for the daily aperitivo ‘hour’ (3-5pm) and stay for the share plates: creamy burrata bathing in crispy chilli oil and scattered with sweet pickled onions; crunchy crostini slathered with nduja and ricotta; lamb skewers on a bed of punchy salsa verde.

Housed within a heritage-listed, six-storey former warehouse, this Flinders Lane eatery has good bones. Its interiors are dimly lit, awash with timber and superbly cosy, like a slice of Europe tucked into Melbourne’s laneways.

Cuisine: European

Average price: $$$

Atmosphere: Smart casual

Location: 1/238 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

11. Da Noi

the dining interior of Da Noi, Italian restaurants Melbourne — Da Noi has been pleasing palates with fresh Sardinian pasta since 1991. (Image: @timsonmez)

This small, South Yarra stalwart is something of a local’s secret, quietly going strong since 1995. If it weren’t for the shop window, where this Sardinian restaurant’s fresh pasta is often handmade, then perhaps even fewer people would be privy to its charms.

Choose from a la carte or a set six-course menu here. Traditional dishes that might land on your table include culurgiones (stuffed pasta), porceddu (roast suckling pig), or fregola (small, toasted pasta grains). And did we mention that Da Noi even boasts its own smallholding? Much of the fruit, veg, eggs and meat that grace your plate have been sustainably and ethically sourced from the family farm in the upper Goulburn Valley.

Expect pressed white tablecloths, candlelight, wooden chairs and walls lined with art.

Cuisine: Sardinian

Average price: $$$$

Atmosphere: Cosy

Location: 95 Toorak Rd, South Yarra

12. Rosa’s Canteen

Italian dining at Rosa’s Canteen, Melbourne — Find a range of indulgent plates from the Sicilian menu. (Image: Rosa’s Canteen)

Rosa’s Canteen has amassed a loyal following over the last decade, known for its authentic, honest, homestyle Italian cooking in the thick of the city. Despite its location, this Sicilian-inspired eatery offers some respite from the CBD’s busy streets, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the treetops, allowing light to pour in.

Much of the kitchen’s produce is plucked from chef Rosa Mitchell’s family farm, and fresh herbs, fruits and veggies receive equal billing on the menu: whipped ricotta with pickled zucchini, chilli and mint; spaghetti aglio olio with anchovy, cherry tomato and garlic; eggplant involtini with tomato, celery, radish and ricotta.

Cuisine: Sicilian

Average price: $$$

Atmosphere: Tranquil and welcoming

Location: Shop 8, Rear of/500 Bourke St, Melbourne

13. Grossi Florentino

the dimly lit dining at Grossi Florentino, Italian restaurants Melbourne — Grossi Florentino serves up intricate dishes in an intimate space. (Image: Visit Victoria)

Among the oldest restaurants in all of Australia, Grossi Florentino (known as Café Florentino until its takeover by the Grossi family in 1999) has been going strong since the 1920s. Few restaurant experiences in Australia compare to dining upstairs here: lined with murals, forged wrought iron lighting, timber panelling, and chandeliers, this imposing space feels almost like a place of worship.

The menu commands similar reverence, each dish intricately composed and full of rich ingredients: risotto with Moreton Bay bugs, Cape Grim short rib with red wine sugo, caviar with ricotta hotcakes.

Downstairs, the buzzy Grill restaurant is inspired by Tuscany, and a more casual entry to the Grossi empire.

Cuisine: Italian

Average price: $$$$

Atmosphere: Stately

Location: 80 Bourke St, Melbourne

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Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd. In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park — The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd — Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles. I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain — Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail, Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

“There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

wildflowers in Grampians National Park — Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola — Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

dining at Pomonal Estate — Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

Salingers of Great Western — Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

Kookaburras on a tree — Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity.

Playing there

abseiling down Hollow Mountain — Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors. Visit Wama, Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium.

Eating there

steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate. Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock, can’t be beat.

Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park — The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe. Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines, Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines.

two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.

13 Italian restaurants in Melbourne guaranteed to fuel your fire

With slick new openings, classic cucinas and masterful high-end dining, there’s a lot to love in Melbourne’s Italian restaurant world.

The shortlist

1. Studio Amaro

2. Puttanesca Osteria

3. Luci

4. Officina Gastronomica Italiana

5. Al Dente Enoteca

6. Di Stasio

7. Alta Trattoria

8. Figlia

9. Bar Idda

10. Elio’s Place

11. Da Noi

12. Rosa’s Canteen

13. Grossi Florentino

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This scenic Victorian region is the perfect antidote to city life

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Playing there

Eating there

With slick new openings, classic cucinas and masterful high-end dining, there’s a lot to love in Melbourne’s Italian restaurant world.

The shortlist

1. Studio Amaro

2. Puttanesca Osteria

3. Luci

4. Officina Gastronomica Italiana

AI Prompt

5. Al Dente Enoteca

6. Di Stasio

7. Alta Trattoria

8. Figlia

9. Bar Idda

10. Elio’s Place

11. Da Noi

12. Rosa’s Canteen

13. Grossi Florentino

The world’s first rotating Snowtunnel is coming to Australia

Melbourne’s newest hotel is a love letter to the city

Is it worth staying at The Royce hotel in Melbourne?

This new bathhouse in Melbourne feels like stepping into a rainforest

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Playing there

Eating there