Sette Bello

Corner Hardware Lane & Little Bourke Streets,
Phone not connected yet (I think)

Sette Bello, a rather funky mish mash of modern styling and retro cool, is an Italianesque cafe that is practically within throwing distance of where I live. I can't tell you how happy I am to have a decent cafe nearby. My only gripe - they're not open for Sunday breakfast! Ooh, what I'd give for a decent Sunday brekky joint in the CBD. And before you say it, no, Golden Tower is *not* an option.

Claire over at Melbourne Gastronome was the first to blow the lid on this little gem, and I certainly agree with her sentiments.

The first time we visited was for a post-shopping pick-me-up coffee and cannoli (we already know how much I love a good cannoli). The coffee provided the required hit of caffeine with a decent crema, and the cannoli, crunchy chocolate pastry piped full of citron studded ricotta was absolutely da business.

Impressed as we were with what we had experienced already, we decided to go back for breakfast on Saturday. The choice is small but sufficient - toasted brioche with marmalada (that being from the Italian meaning "jam" and not "marmalade"), tomato baked eggs in cazuela (terracotta dish) with spinach or prosciutto, or breakfast pizettes with egg and spinach or prosciutto. There is also a very good selection of will-power-weakening pastries, fruit brioche etc. to tempt those with a sweeter tooth (which is usually me, but on this occassion I needed eggs).

Our breakfast eggs were delightfully simple - two perfectly baked googies nestled deep into freshly wilted spinach and sweet tomato sugo (sauce). It arrived unseasoned - but it really only needed some cracked black pepper as the warm chunks of foccaccia were liberally sprinkled with flakes of sea salt. I really enjoyed this - more so because it wasn't crappy, greasy bacon and eggs.

So take that as a warning breakfast people. Don't go expecting a big menu with fry ups, french toast, pancake stacks, bircher museli or fruit salad. What you will get will be done well, and it may take just a little time to reach you (I don't quite think they've hit their food-serving mojo yet - but cut them a little slack, they're still new). But if you take a loved one and settle in for some good conversation, or mull over a newspaper with a coffee or two, it'll be just fine.

Espressino

Madame Brussells Lane
50 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Phone 03 9662 3334

"Cibo con amore" or "food with love" is the mantra at Espressino, a sophisticated and funky pizzetta, piadina and wine bar that caters to dainty public servants and office workers near the corner of Lonsdale and Spring. Located in Madame Brussels lane, it is the shining light amongst a glut of $5-coffee-and-muffin-joints which are unfortunately the standard in the area.

Opening only a few months ago, this family run affair is both passionate and authentic. Hailing from Torrevecchia in Italy, there isn't a twee stereotype in sight - no checked tablecloths or bottles of chianti hanging from the ceiling, or stodgy cheese laden Italian fare. But what makes it special is that both the food and the service is done with love. And though I hate to fawn, I am absolutely smitten by it.

The protagonists at this culinary helm are Remo (as in the saint), a decidedly hunky Italian specimen with a look and an accent that can drop a girl at 20 paces (gee...lucky I am SO enamoured by EG!). He has a firm hospitality pedigree - operating cafes both here and in Italy, where he lived for 15 years. Deano, his godfather (...not to be confused with THE godfather), is a cheeky chap and one who is not adverse to a gossip and a bit of shtick. He started his trade in Queensland running a pizza joint with Remo's father, and has since run cafe's in Melbourne, taking a side step into ladies hairdressing (hence his excellent communication skills). Enis, Deano's wife, is the most gorgeous, welcoming lady, with the heart, passion and cooking skills of a good Italian mama (...although she is far from looking like one!). There are others - sisters helping out in the kitchen and front of house, and a Sicilian uncle who is the pastrychef, a man who takes sole responsibility for my daily afternoon jaunt to the cake display.

But lets get onto the food. Mmm...rigatoni con ragu. Doesn't this photo make you want to just dive in and eat - fork in one hand and hunk of bread in the other? Only recently has pasta made an appearance on the menu (thank god...those boxes of De Cecco pasta sitting on the counter have been taunting me for weeks!), and is served on Thursday and Friday. Enis takes responsibility for this bowl of goodness - firm aldente rigatoni, a tomato and beef ragu that has been cooked as all good sauces should be cooked - low and slooooow. And I don't even know where to begin with the meat - it was tender and just fell to bits under my fork. Oh yeah. My Nonna would be happy with this.

I just so love the details - for example, your pasta comes served with a plate of crusty white bread which is perfect for wiping clean your plate afterwards. There is a grater for your parmesan, and a little dish of fresh chopped deseeded chilli that has been mixed with cracked black pepper. It is these little extras that I find so delightful. The little demi carafe of vino didn't go astray either, making my Friday afternoon in the office a rather chirpy and relaxed affair.

For lunch one may also go the way of the pizza, which is made onsite daily, base and all. As you can see here, we are not talking your cheap meat lovers or Papa Gino's special. This is gooood - toppings are fresh and simple - broccolini with prosciutto and tallegio, roasted vegetable, or even a simple margarita. A couple of choices a day keep things interesting.

If you want to go simple, then the foccaccia caprese can't be beat (...I must confess to having this one quite regularly). Fior de latte mozzarella, tomato and basil. That's it. The holy trinity of colours, red, white and green, toasted together in an olive oil and oregano foccaccia bread.

Other lunchtime offerings include sour dough piadina, toasted and served hot on a wood bread board (ahh...details). Filling ingredients include salame (sic), rocket, tuna, egg, asparagus, provolone, asiago, prosciutto, parma, roasted peppers etc.

Breakfast too is excellent. Dench breads - fruit and sourdough, are a good way to wake up in the morning, as are the breakfast panino's with spinach, googy fried egg and provolone, or pancetta and googy egg. There is Misura Italian Cornflakes, Byron Bay Muesli, breakfast piadina with nutella and coconut (oh yeah). They also have a few specials, for instance the zabaglione with pavesini biscuits pictured above - a delicious silky marsala infused egg cream that is way too wicked to eat for breakfast. This evoked some very fond childhood memories, standing on a chair whisking egg yolks (I was about four or five years old) with my Nonna, pleading with her to put in another "cucchiaio di zucchero" (spoon of sugar). Ahh....I just love when food does this.

Oh...this is the "oops...was so hungry to take a photo before I ate it" warm breakfast panino with spinach, egg and cheese.

As I said earlier, the cake display is what calls to me each afternoon. It changes on a daily basis, keeping my pastry-inclined ways interested and enthused. The star of the show is the bombolone - yeasty Italian doughnuts pumped full of custard, raspberry or apricot jam. On certain days you can also get a very naughty nutella and custard combination. Other items include "probably the best lemon and blood orange tartlets", white chocolate tarts, an amazing gluten free chocolate cake, plum and almond friands - well, the list goes on. All of the cakes are nicely sized (ie not supersized), so you don't feel so bad eating them. Well, that is what I like to tell myself anyway.

The biscuits too are just amazing. Above is the napolitani - a pure work of pastrymaking art - a chocolatey nutty interior wrapped by sweet pastry, sprinkled with pistachios and drizzled with jam. Ooh...I just feel faint thinking about them. There are also garibaldi, mandarin amaretti, sour cherry amaretti, shortbread stuffed with figs...yes yes yes!

You know, I just love a place that greets me by name when I walk in, that is interested when they ask "And how are you today?", and gives me such wonderful food to swoon over. And the romcaffe coffee, sourced directly from Italy, can't be beat either.

Fifteen - lunch special

Basement, 115-117 Collins Street, Melbourne
(enter through Georges Parade)
Ph 1300 799 415

It has been almost a year since Fifteen Melbourne opened its doors, and I thought it high time I went back to see just how this little venture was going. I had noticed some heavy advertising in the newspapers of late, promoting a lunchtime special of two courses and a glass of wine for $28.50. So with EG and six work mates in tow, I made a booking for the following week (hmm...looks like one doesn't need to wait on the reservation line for 40 minutes or for a reservation months in advance anymore).

I first went to Fifteen back in October 2006, and whilst I found the food satisfying, I did feel the prices were just a little too high. Eleven months on and you will still find Aesop products in the bathroom, and the prices certainly haven't dropped. The bread is good (you get a choice of four types which they offered twice) with really grassy peppery olive oil for dipping. Front of house is still very professional, though I must admit we had a rather funky (in a bad sense of the word) smelling waiter, who emitted a foul stench whenever he lent over to deposit a plate or fill up the water glass. Eww. But let's just leave that one there.

The lunch special offers two courses from a reduced choice menu, two each of entree, pasta or dessert.

A couple of my workmates ordered the Rotolo of ricotta with a sage and burnt butter sauce (above). Looks good, huh? Tender sheets of fresh pasta had been rolled with seasoned ricotta and garnished with crispy sage and shavings of parmesan. It probably was a little heavy on the beurre noisette though, which made for a very rich dish.

Most of the group went the milk fed veal osso bucco ravioli with marrow, creamy borlotti beans and braising liquor. Despite the fact that this dish was seriously tasty, all was not well. The inside of the ravioli was good - packed full of shreds of slow cooked osso bucco meat and creamy marrow. The braising liquor (sauce) was also good, marrying well with the firm borlotti beans(cooked from the dried, not the fresh) and having the taste of a good bean minestra. But the downfall? Well...the pasta was not cooked. WHAT THE? Thats right, the pasta was absolutely raw at the seal where the two layers of pasta came together. It wasn't even raw in a nice way (ie. when you use freshly made pasta). It was inedibly hard and floury, the layer of uncooked pasta plain to the eye.

I/we should have sent it back straight away, but at this stage we had already been sitting there for forty-five minutes and a work lunch hour ticks by way too fast. I ate the filling, the beans, and left the rim of the ravioli as evidence.

Okay now I reckon this is pretty poor, especially as Fifteen Melbourne boasts an Italian Mediterranean style. Pasta should be the one thing they are getting bang on right.

We showed this to the waiter and watched as he passed it on to the kitchen/chef. Unfortunately the advice wasn't heeded, as one of our party, who had ordered an entree first, received his ravioli about fifteen minutes later. And that one too was raw! We complained to the waiter again and he apologised and offered free coffees in compensation.

Dessert too was a little hit and miss. The hot sticky fig pudding with butterscotch and mascarpone was a popular choice on the table - it was moist, caramelly and nicely plated with a quenelle of mascarpone sitting in a brandy snap curl.

The baked custard and prune tart with walnut icecream was a bit of a miss though. To start with the pastry wasn't cooked and the filling (what there was of it) was bland and uninspiring. The scrape of prune puree wasn't enough to impart any flavour at all, and it just looked limp and insipid on the plate.

We really didn't have time to hang around for our free coffee (we'd been there an hour and a half already), so we bid Fifteen adieu.

Now I love what Fifteen are all about - giving disadvantaged kids the opportunity of acquiring a trade etc. But I also expect value for money - and whilst the venue, the service, the ingredients etc. were all great (...and worth what I paid), damn, they just lost it in the execution. I hope they lift their game.

Journal Canteen

1st floor, 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Phone 03 9650 4399

We had an exquisite lunch yesterday at the newish Journal Canteen at the Centre for Adult Education (CAE). A member of the Con Christopoulos empire, which also includes the Melbourne Supper Club, European, City Wine Shop, Journal Cafe and Pelican, the Canteen is a more than worthy addition. Doubling as a catering school on weekend's, the Canteen's concrete bunker space is softened by smart use of colour - chalk coloured walls broken up by a green tongue and groove dado, black steel frames, gold mesh panels, honeywood laminate and lovely vases with a single pink tulip stem in each. Retro touches abounded, like a 50's looking floor fan, and a silver cake stand displaying the daily dessert.

Furniture is decidely old school, literally. Communal tables and steel legged chairs takes you back to school days, the retro aesthetic stemming from Christopoulos' love of using recycled furniture in all his places. A long bench along the entire north side of the space provides views of buzzy Flinders Lane, appreciated by patrons perched on steel-legged Happy Days style stools. The open kitchen tempts diners with fabulous smells, the sizzling of the grill and the glorious antipasti lined up at the pass.

The food experience simulates being invited to lunch at manager Rosa's house - homely food with a Sicillian bent. The menu is small and changes daily, but will always include an antipasto, soup, choice of two or three mains, one or two desserts, wines by the glass and beers; all have an Italian accent.

I had the squid ink spaghetti and Mellie chose the veal involtini with beans (both $18). We could also have chosen from pasta brodo (pasta in soup) or a bistecca (thinly sliced steak) and mash. The spaghetti was simply delicious; one of the best I've had this year. The squid ink imparted a beautiful sea flavour to the dish without being overly fishy or salty. The pasta was of excellent quality, and was deliciously studded with smoky pieces of squid. The involtini was magnificent, too; real melt-in-your-mouth stuff, with a very piquant and tasty sugo, and wonderfully garlicky beans. A complimentary lettuce and fennel salad was well-dressed and refreshing.

We couldn't go past the cannoli for dessert ($3.50), which was freshly filled on demand by the chef. A beautiful crunchy pastry lead to a tasty ricotta honey-scented filling that was simply divine. It went well with the strong complimentary stovetop espresso - no pithy caffe lattes here :)

Service was proficient and friendly, especially the vivacious Rosa, though orders were slow to come out of the kitchen once the place filled up. My advice would be to get there early.

All up, a more than satisfying lunch venue (it's not open for dinner or on weekends), with delicious food, quirky but cool decor, and a wonderful vibe. Another winner for Mr "Midas Touch" Christopoulos!

Melbourne Italian Festival

The food at the Melbourne Italian Festival at Federation Square last weekend was a lil' unimpressive. There were only a handful stalls - one selling gnocchi napoli for $10 a plate (expensive?!). Another stall sold rolls with salami and cheese or porchetta, and one was roasting fresh chestnuts.

I was perplexed. Where were all the food stalls? Were the places who attended previous festivals in Lygon Street boycotting for the change in venue?

The one other food stall that made an appearance was ChoriOz. Being more Argentinian than Italian, ChoriOz are a regular at farmers markets and festivals. The meat comes from their own stud called Monte Allegro in Nar Nar Goon.

I was impressed with their attempt to do an Italian style beef sausage, shaped in a spiral (or "snail" as they called it) and served with BBQ'd leeks and parsley chimichurri on a sour dough roll. It was damn tasty.

But where were all the big fat juicy pork continental salsiccia? And the cannoli?

Pea, Prosciutto, Pecorino, Rosemary, Lemony Risotto

Risotto is one of those quick and easy Italian meals that is an absolute cinch to knock up. As long as you know the "rules", you can pretty much wing it in the flavour department. A good risotto is all about the rice, the onion, the butter, the broth, the cheese, and just a little more butter at the end. As long as you have those essentials right, the rest will just fall into place.

This is not a recipe per se, more of an idea of a flavour combination that works. Therefore, follow the rules to make a basic risotto and add the following:

Throw in a tablespoon or so of roughly chopped fresh rosemary to sweat with the onions at the start. This will impart through the rice adding a wonderful fragrance.

Instead of wine, I actually added a splosh (or two) of dry vermouth to the rice, letting it absorb completely before adding the stock.

Towards the end of the cooking (around about the 12 minute mark or with two to four ladles of stock to go), I added some frozen peas and finely grated lemon rind. Let this cook into the creamy goodness.

When you take the aldente rice off the stove to stir in the butter (yes, lots) and cheese, add a mix of freshly grated (from the block) pecorino and parmigiano reggiano. Top with crisp prosciutto - it adds both crunch and saltiness.

Enjoy.

Cannoli - T.Cavallaro & Sons Pasticceria

98 Hopkins Street, Footscray
Phone: 03 9687 4638

Could this be Melbourne's best cannoli? Well...I'd have to say it comes pretty close, if not nails the title quite squarely.

T.Cavallaro & Sons have been dolling out these little tubes of custardy goodness for many years. And they aren't on display getting all soggy like in most other shops. You sidle up to the counter and place your order - vanilla, chocolate, vanilla and chocolate, or traditional ricotta. The staff then whip out back and pipe your cannoli fresh. That's right - on demand cannoli.

The pastry - oh my - the pastry. It is crisp, crunchy and bubbled from the boiling oil, but more of a surprise is the taste of marsala. Mmm. And the crema pasticcera (custard) piped into the cylinders is divinely and wickedly sweet. Some poor sod has stood over a hot pot of milk, egg, sugar and flour and stirred this baby till it thickened.

One can also purchase the equally good Brutti ma buoni - which literally transaltes as the "ugly but good" cookie. Yes, they may not be pretty, but these Italian chocolate and nut meringue cookies are crisp on the outside and gloriously chewy, nutty and sweet on the inside. The perfect treat with a good cup of espresso.

Nostro Baretto

G25 GPO Lane, 350 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Phone 03 9654 5838

Nostro Baretto is a rather unique little place squeezed seductively into the laneway at top end of the GPO. It offers Italian food that is a cut above the usual droll pizza/pasta places that most people associate "Italian cuisine" with in this town (grrr..). And whilst you may be able to get a plate of pasta here, there are usually only one or two options (markedly inventive versions too) available on the ever-changing blackboard menu.

The waiters are absolutely "the business". They beguile with adorable Italian accents and dark looks as they recite the menu to you - the whole menu - it will take a few minutes :-). But they are so very professional, whisking away dishes when done, topping up wine and water, and providing interesting banter when required. I confessed that my proper Italian was not up to scratch as I spoke with a Calabrese dialect care of my Nonna. The waiter understood - he had learnt Italian from his Pugliese Nonna, and it wasn't until he went to Rome recently where he "brushed" up on his proper Italian skills.

To start we shared an antipasto platter filled with the most wonderful selection of delectable treats; sweet vinegared red onions, marinated field mushrooms, sauteed and spiced eggplant, a sweet potato/parmesan/parsley combination, pepperonata, carciofe (artichoke hearts), smashed green olives and slices of smoked trout. And of course, lovely crusty white bread, pasta dura style, to help it all go down.

I ordered a slow cooked lamb stew with green olives and herbs, which sat atop a slab of firm grilled polenta. The lamb was incredibly tender (as you can tell in the image above), and the jus-like gravy had me wanting to give the plate a long big lick.

EG went the pork fillet stuffed with gorgonzola and served with wilted spinach and jerusalem artichoke. Once again, this was a flavour sensation - almost to the point of overload.

For dessert I succumbed to the waiters suggestion of the Sicilian style baked ricotta cheesecake. Well, I really didn't succumb - I damn near ravished the waiter when he suggested it (nb. I do have a thing for ricotta ;-)).

EG went the tiramisu - a firm square of coffee dipped savoiardi, artery clogging mascarpone and a sprinkling of bitter dark chocolate.

Our young waiter for the evening also recommended the most fantastic Veneto Valpolicella - a perfect match for our courses.

Just on a side note, this is actually a belated blog entry, as EG and I dined here on Valentine's Day (that's right, after the picnic). And I don't know whether St.V had anything to do with it, but I just found Nostro Baretto to be delightfully romantic. It felt like we had momentarily stepped out of Melbourne and into an intimate alleyway in Rome. The ambience, the architecure, the intimate space and the buzz - it was wonderfully European.