Buon Appetito: The Best Italian Restaurants in Melbourne

The best Italian restaurants in Melbourne include Tipo 00 in the CBD for benchmark handmade pasta, Florentino on Bourke Street for grand long lunches and 400 Gradi in Brunswick East for Neapolitan pizza with international bragging rights. Bar Idda brings Sicily to Lygon Street, Trattoria Emilia keeps Emilia-Romagna close and Scopri moves confidently across Italy’s regions, course by course. Then there is the new guard, led by Delmonte in Carlton, which has very quickly become the table we’re most excited to return to.

Italian food has been part of Melbourne’s grammar for generations, from the espresso-and-red-sauce mythology of Lygon Street to linened institutions, tiny pasta bars, Sicilian kitchens, pizza obsessives and suburban dining rooms where someone’s nonna would still have an opinion. No single idea of Italy leads the city now, and that is precisely why eating your way through it remains so much fun.

Best Italian Restaurants in Melbourne for Handmade Pasta

For ribbons, parcels, tubes and hand-shaped things worth rearranging dinner plans around, these are Melbourne’s pasta heavyweights.

Tipo 00, Melbourne CBD

Melbourne’s pasta benchmark still earns the first booking. Tipo 00 is all tight tables, serious flour and saucing with intent, from squid-ink tagliolini with bottarga to potato gnocchi with braised duck, porcini and pecorino pepato. Then there is the Tipomisù, now part of Melbourne dessert folklore. Small room, mighty reputation, not a strand wasted.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Special occasion, Wine lovers

Al Dente Enoteca, Carlton

A former Carlton providore is exactly the right home for Al Dente Enoteca, where pantry shelves still frame the dining room and the cooking draws on the Italian flavours Andrea Vignali and Davide Bonadiman grew up with. Vitello tonnato might lead into gnocchi alla sorrentina or cacio e pepe tortellini (our genuine favourite), while BYO keeps a welcome trace of old Carlton in the mix. Better yet, some of the pantry can leave with you afterwards.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals
Need To Know: Set inside a former Italian providore, with BYO available and pantry goods to take home.

Osteria Ilaria, Melbourne CBD

A few doors down, Tipo 00’s sibling, Osteria Ilaria, widens the lens without losing any of the precision. Paccheri, seafood, bitter leaves, clever snacks and bright sauces move through a menu with one eye on Italy and another roaming Europe, backed by a wine list built for curious drinking. Order the pasta, but do not make the mistake of treating it as the entire point.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Special occasion
Need To Know: More expansive than Tipo 00, with pasta sitting inside a broader European menu.

Alt Pasta Bar, Melbourne CBD

Alt Pasta Bar takes Italian tradition apart and puts it back together with a distinctly Melbourne brain. Chef-owner Mino Han makes everything in-house, sending out seaweed pappardelle with smoky abalone, squid-ink fettuccine with spanner crab and bisque, and desserts where chestnut, mascarpone and tonka bean replace predictability. Moody Niagara Lane surrounds suit cooking this clever and slightly strange.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Contemporary Italian
Best For: Date night, Special occasion, Solo dining

Lagotto, Fitzroy North

Fitzroy North treats Lagotto like valuable local intelligence. Oysters and crudo might open proceedings before handmade pasta, swordfish cotoletta and whatever seasonal idea has caught the kitchen’s attention that week. When saffron spaghetti with bluefin tuna, bottarga and wood sorrel appears, ordering becomes remarkably straightforward. There is polish in the cooking without any need to announce itself.

Suburb: Fitzroy North
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals

Park Street Pasta & Wine, South Melbourne

Handmade pasta is the point at Park Street Pasta & Wine, and the kitchen wastes little time explaining why. Italy’s regions provide the map while Victorian produce fills in the detail, from veal and wild rabbit agnolotti with sage butter to Spring Bay mussel tagliatelle with heirloom zucchini. Few South Melbourne pleasures disappear from the plate quite this quickly.

Suburb: South Melbourne
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Regional Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals
Need To Know: Pasta is made by hand with a strong seasonal and regional focus.

Osteria Renata, Prahran

Behind Osteria Renata’s olive-green frontage, northern Italy sets the tone: butter, egg-rich pasta, slow-cooked sauces and aperitivo poured before dinner has quite decided what shape it is taking. The pasta is silky, the affogato worth saving room for and Victorian-grown Italian varietals give the wine list a strong local thread. Dessert is a must.

Suburb: Prahran
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Northern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Group dining, Locals
Need To Know: The Alba Room is available for larger groups and private dining.

Super Norma, Carlton

Super Norma began as a short-lived Rathdowne Street pop-up and sensibly refused to disappear. Marco Salzano and Luca Muscato channel Naples-to-Sicily memories into sauce-stained bowls of pasta, including eggplant-rich Super Norma, scarpariello, cacio e pepe, vongole and slow-cooked ragù napoletano. Tiny room, Italo-disco records and cardboard takeaway boxes keep the entire thing pleasingly unfussy.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Southern Italian
Best For: Budget-friendly, Locals, Casual dining

Melbourne’s Classic Italian Institutions for a Special Occasion

Some restaurants earn their place through novelty. These have years, decades and entire generations of Melbourne dinners behind them.

Florentino, Melbourne CBD

Florentino carries Bourke Street gravitas with chandeliers overhead and history pressed into the walls. Now in its next chapter under Rebecca Yazbek and Edition Group, its Italian soul remains intact through handmade pasta, refined classics, tiramisu and chocolate soufflé. Melbourne has changed around this dining room repeatedly. Florentino still knows exactly how to command a long lunch.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Classic Italian
Best For: Special occasion, Long lunch, Business lunch

Di Stasio, St Kilda, Melbourne CBD & Carlton

Di Stasio is not simply a restaurant group, but a Melbourne Italian temperament: art, appetite, white jackets, sharp edges and unmistakable self-possession. Café Di Stasio carries Fitzroy Street mythology, Città takes the idea into the city and Carlton gives it another beautifully designed stage. Each feels distinct, yet all three share the same charged Di Stasio DNA.

Suburb: St Kilda, Melbourne CBD & Carlton
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Italian
Best For: Special occasion, Date night, Long lunch
Need To Know: Three distinct Melbourne restaurants united by the Di Stasio name.

Cecconi’s, Melbourne CBD

Cecconi’s does not need to chase relevance. It has decades of Melbourne lunches behind it, an assured dining room and a chocolate pudding with its own following. Northern Italian cooking remains the house language: seafood linguine, golden veal cotoletta, Josper-grilled steaks and that molten-centred dessert with fior di latte gelato. White linen still feels very good on Flinders Lane.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Northern Italian
Best For: Business lunch, Special occasion, Long lunch
Need To Know: A longstanding Flinders Lane institution with a second location in Toorak.

Il Bacaro, Melbourne CBD

Il Bacaro has held court on Little Collins Street for three decades, bringing Venetian discipline to a city that likes its Italian after dark. Executive chef David Dellai keeps the cooking refined but never brittle, moving through vitello tonnato, tagliolini al limone with crab and zucchini and cappellacci with taleggio, corn and basil. White linen and assured service complete the picture.

Sitchu Tip: Start with the Parmesan martini.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Venetian-inspired Italian
Best For: Special occasion, Business lunch, Date night, Wine lovers

Cicciolina, St Kilda

Cicciolina has occupied Acland Street since 1993, making it less a St Kilda restaurant than part of the suburb’s muscle memory. Art-covered walls, regulars at the bar, handmade pasta and seasonal seafood give the room the rare magnetism that only time can produce. Trends have arrived, departed and embarrassed themselves. Cicciolina is still feeding people very well.

Suburb: St Kilda
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Italian
Best For: Date night, Locals, Special occasion

Caffé e Cucina

Since 1988, Caffé e Cucina has kept Chapel Street supplied with carpaccio, linguine di mare, risotto and one of Melbourne’s great close-table dining rooms, where everybody else’s order becomes part of the evening. Chapel Street has reinvented itself countless times outside; inside, regulars return to the classics, the staff know the room by heart and nearly four decades of Italian hospitality speak for themselves.

Suburb: South Yarra
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Classic Italian
Best For: Date night, Special occasion, Locals

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New & Noteworthy Italian Restaurants in Melbourne

Melbourne’s latest Italian chapter is moving from Roman trattorias and family recipe books to Tokyo-influenced pizza and new-school neighbourhood bars.

Delmonte, Carlton

Delmonte has taken the old King & Godfree deli and made Carlton feel thrillingly like itself again. The oysters are still on our mind: ice-cold, bright with brine and gone far too quickly, followed by capocollo sliced paper-thin, focaccia, and pasta from head chef Diana Desensi that makes ordering one bowl feel optimistic. Around it all: cream tiles, a zinc bar, salumi cut to order, Piedmont bottles being opened and vinyl rolling through the room. By dinner, Lygon Street feels very alive indeed.

Sitchu Tip: Start with the oysters and something cold in the glass, then surrender to the pasta.

Oh, and possibly Melbourne’s best dessert right now: Delmonte’s sundae, piled high with Pidapipo gelato, Italian meringue and tart morello cherry. Cold, creamy, sweet, sharp and completely perfect in every way.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Northern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Long lunch, Group dining
Need To Know: Delmonte sits inside the historic King & Godfree building, with a serious Piedmont-leaning cellar and rare bottles from the original K&G collection, some dating back to the 1950s.

Paloma Pizza Bar, Hawthorn

Paloma Pizza Bar has taken over the old Zia’s, a place brothers Matt and Kael Sahely ate at as kids, and turned the childhood landmark into somewhere they might now stay late themselves. Forty-eight-hour dough carries sopressa, hot honey and stracciatella; vodka rigatoni, handmade gnocchi and whole flounder in lemon butter make a proper dinner of it. Original archways and high ceilings meet dark timber and low light, and as dusk settles the music lifts, the Sicilian Palomas start appearing and takeaway pizza begins to feel like a missed opportunity.

Suburb: Hawthorn
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italian, Pizza
Best For: Date night, Group dining, Locals

Roma, Melbourne CBD

Roma has gone gorgeously specific on Collins Street. Con Christopoulos, Matt Wilkinson and Giovanni Patane have built a full-blooded Roman trattoria around a monumental marble antipasto table, checkerboard floors, vintage Italian lamps and pastel Ginori crockery. Wilkinson heads straight for Rome’s quinto quarto tradition with trippa alla Romana and paccheri alla Baronessa rich with chicken liver, mushroom and mascarpone, while whole fish waits on ice and the wine list digs deep into Lazio. Melbourne has plenty of Italian restaurants; very few feel this committed to one city.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Roman Italian
Best For: Long lunch, Date night, Wine lovers, Special occasion

Julietta, South Yarra

South Yarra needed this. Julietta is Joss Jenner-Leuthart’s 35-seat neighbourhood Italian, all burgundy banquettes, vintage brass light and a tiny kitchen led by Mamasita executive chef Jimmy Garside. Pasta is made daily, from green-peppercorn cacio e pepe to radiatori with spanner crab, but the Sicilian bluefin tuna crudo has become our fixation: superb tuna, good olive oil, tiny capers and onion, left almost entirely alone because it needs nothing else. We ordered it again instead of dessert. A Fig Negroni under the candlelight sealed the evening.

Suburb: South Yarra
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals

The Spaghetti Club, Richmond

The Spaghetti Club starts with an orange recipe book belonging to co-founder Lucas Gugliandolo’s Sicilian nonno, Mario, and the Monday-night family dinners that came with it. Head chef Michael Flemming takes that inheritance somewhere deliciously looser, through béchamel-heavy lasagne, maccheroni alla norma, spaghetti vongole and pork chop cotoletta. Amber glass, dark timber and white tablecloths keep the family-album feeling going without turning the room into an overly nostalgic performance.

Suburb: Richmond
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Southern Italian
Best For: Group dining, Casual dining, Locals
Need To Know: Mondays bring a rotating $45 family-style menu, changing weekly and running outside the regular menu.

Garfield Pizzeria, Carlton

Garfield Pizzeria has brought Tokyo pizza technique to the middle of Lygon Street, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. Seventy-two-hour dough is stretched rather than slapped, giving the crust extra ripple and char before toppings get wonderfully unruly: the lasagne-inspired Garfield comes with pork-and-beef meatballs and shards of parmesan, while the Tokyo Bonito layers katsuobushi béchamel, raw tuna, shiso and finger lime. Carlton did not need another ordinary pizza shop.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italian, Tokyo-influenced pizza
Best For: Casual dining, Group dining, Locals
Need To Know: Walk-in counter-service pizzeria from Jamie Valmorbida and Karen Martini, using 72-hour fermented dough and the Tokyo stretch method.

Best Regional Italian Restaurants in Melbourne

Italy is not one cuisine, and Melbourne’s most interesting Italian restaurants know it. These are the tables where Piemonte, Sicily, Emilia-Romagna and the south get their own say.

Scopri, Carlton

Scopri draws freely from regions across Italy rather than compressing the country into a greatest-hits menu. Dinner follows the traditional rhythm of antipasto, pasta, main and dessert, while the wine list remembers Italy has 20 regions and gives them real attention. There is precision here, but also warmth. The pleasure lies in allowing dinner to progress course by course.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Regional Italian
Best For: Special occasion, Wine lovers, Long lunch

Bar Olo, Carlton

Barolo is more than a name at Bar Olo. Scopri’s Piemonte-minded sibling pours the region generously, including back vintages and Coravin selections, beside vitello tonnato, prawn tramezzini, pappardelle ripiene and agnolotti del plin. Wood panelling, close tables and a serious cellar give Nicholson Street a rather convincing northern Italian accent for the evening.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Piedmontese Italian
Best For: Wine lovers, Date night, Special occasion

Bar Idda, Brunswick East

Bar Idda gives Brunswick East its Sicilian pulse through eggplant, pecorino, cannoli, salt, generosity and streetlight. The mulinciani, a baked eggplant lasagne layered with buffalo mozzarella and pecorino, is the dish around which plans should be made. Rustic and regionally specific, it brings the heat and abundance of southern Italy to this stretch of Lygon Street.

Sitchu Tip: If the mulinciani is on the table, guard your share.

Suburb: Brunswick East
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Sicilian
Best For: Locals, Group dining, Date night

Trattoria Emilia, Melbourne CBD

Down Gills Alley, Trattoria Emilia keeps its loyalties firmly in Emilia-Romagna. Gnocco fritto, prosciutto di Parma, stracciatella and tagliatelle alla bolognese arrive with the confidence of dishes that have had centuries to work themselves out. Lunch can remain beautifully simple or dinner can stretch through parmesan, pasta and regional cooking until Little Collins Street feels much further away.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Emilia-Romagna
Best For: Long lunch, Date night, Wine lovers

Casa Mariotti, Richmond

Casa Mariotti brings Rome to Swan Street through the recipes of Antonella Mariotti, whose four children now run the family restaurant. The menu keeps its loyalties clear: supplì al telefono, bucatini all’amatriciana, rigatoni alla carbonara and saltimbocca alla Romana, with Italian wines and Victorian-grown Italian varietals filling the glasses. It feels familial without slipping into cliché, and Richmond is richer for it.

Suburb: Richmond
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Roman Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals, Group dining

Bar Taralli, North Melbourne

Bar Taralli borrows its appetite from Italy’s south: smoke, tomato, sea air, bitter greens, chilli and wine with a little volcanic temper. Handmade pasta, seafood and rustic plates set the pace, with dishes such as polpo alla Luciana and bombette Pugliesi carrying plenty of regional identity. It is food that makes North Melbourne feel several latitudes warmer.

Suburb: North Melbourne
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Southern Italian
Best For: Date night, Locals, Wine lovers

Best Italian Restaurants in Melbourne for Pizza

Melbourne takes pizza seriously enough to have schools of thought about hydration, fermentation, oven temperature and crust. These are the ones we think about more often than not.

400 Gradi, Brunswick East

400 Gradi remains a Lygon Street pizza benchmark, with Neapolitan dough, a ferociously hot oven and a margherita backed by international bragging rights. The appeal is clearest when very little gets between you and the base: tomato, fior di latte, basil, olive oil, blister and char. Sometimes Melbourne’s best-known pizza order is still the correct one.

Sitchu Tip: Order the margherita before getting distracted by anything louder.

Suburb: Brunswick East
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Neapolitan pizza
Best For: Group dining, Locals, Casual dining
Need To Know: The original Melbourne outpost of Johnny Di Francesco’s pizza group.

Figlia, Brunswick East

The Tipo 00 and Osteria Ilaria crew turned their attention to sourdough pizza at Figlia and gave the dough the same obsessive treatment Melbourne first knew them for in pasta form. Light, blistered bases carry combinations such as duck sausage, cavolo nero and stracciatella, with charred snacks and natural wine keeping pace. The horseshoe bar is prime real estate.

Suburb: Brunswick East
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Sourdough pizza and Italian
Best For: Date night, Group dining, Wine lovers

The Alps, Prahran

We would cross a decent amount of Melbourne traffic for The Alps’ Romana-style pizza. Mimmo Cowie and Charley Snadden-Wilson of Clover bring thin, saucy pies with plenty of edge, including the Jura x Toscana with comté, mustard, onion, pecorino and hot honey. There is still a wine-bar brain behind everything, so choosing the bottle can become half the evening.

Suburb: Prahran
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Roman-style pizza
Best For: Wine lovers, Date night, Locals

Leonardo’s Pizza Palace, Carlton

Leonardo’s Pizza Palace has the den-like charm of a 70s party with much better wine: amber light, vintage posters, terracotta racks, big pizzas and tables that get louder as the night goes on. The vodka-sauce pasta knows exactly what it is doing, fried cheese curds arrive with marinara for dunking, and orange wine keeps pace with the whole gloriously saucy affair.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italian-American, Pizza
Best For: Group dining, Date night, Wine lovers

Pizzateca Lupa, South Melbourne

Pizzateca Lupa turns a South Melbourne Market corner into a Roman lunch plan with real bite. Brothers Lino and Gabriele Torre keep the brief focused: pizza in teglia by the slice, classic tonda made to order, fried artichokes, antipasti and Pastificio Liguori pasta. Go for the Norma with fried eggplant, amatriciana fusilli or carbonara tubettone, then see how quickly a market lunch becomes a second round.

Suburb: South Melbourne
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Roman pizza, Italian
Best For: Casual dining, Group dining, Locals

Best Italian Restaurants in Melbourne for Date Night and Wine

Low light, good pasta and a bottle that deserves your attention. These are the Italian restaurants we would book when dinner needs to feel like an occasion without turning formal.

Bar Carolina, South Yarra

Bar Carolina is looking especially good in its Karen Martini era. Chris Connell’s terrazzo, leadlight and dark timber remain, while cicchetti, carpaccio, house-made pasta and serious cuts from the Josper have brought fresh appetite to the room. Barolo receives plenty of space on the wine list, as it should. One aperitivo can very easily become the entire evening.

Suburb: South Yarra
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Special occasion

Bar Rosella, Fitzroy

Bar Rosella is Gertrude Street Italian built around passing plates, better bottles and dinners with room to escalate. Handmade pasta and seasonal small plates might lead to a 1.2-kilogram T-bone cooked Firenze-style, with ricotta cake handling the finish. A wine list shaped by serious sommelier credentials means choosing what to drink deserves almost as much attention as dinner.

Suburb: Fitzroy
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Group dining

Rina’s, Armadale

Rina’s is the Armadale Italian restaurant for diners happy to give the kitchen some control. Its candlelit set menu shifts with small farms and market finds, so prosciutto and melon, spaghetti cacio e pepe and primavera tart may appear one evening before changing again the next. There is intimacy without ceremony, and ice buckets are treated as essential infrastructure.

Suburb: Armadale
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Seasonal Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Special occasion

Lulu, Malvern

A few doors down from Essie, Lulu feels like Malvern stumbled across one of London’s very good neighbourhood Italians and decided not to tell the rest of Melbourne. Burgundy walls, American oak and a curved steel bar wrap around barely 45 seats, with handmade pasta, blistered pizza and an Italian-heavy wine list taking care of dinner. A bar stool is an excellent place to begin.

Sitchu Tip: Tuesday dinner means scotch fillet, fries and salad for $30.

Suburb: Malvern
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals, Solo dining
Need To Know: Small 45-seat neighbourhood restaurant with bar seating.

The Hardware Club, Melbourne CBD

Set inside the former social club for Melbourne’s hardware industry, The Hardware Club has traded tools for antipasti, handmade pasta, pizza and Italian cocktails. The room moves easily from daytime trattoria to wine-fuelled evening, with share plates on the table and bottles travelling between Australia and Italy. A Hardware Lane address with history, personality and very good reasons to stay for another glass.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Group dining

Bar Bianco, Toorak

Bar Bianco keeps Hawksburn Village very well supplied in the things that matter: excellent wine, gnocco fritto with culatello, kingfish crudo, brown-butter pumpkin tortellini and a gloriously old-school Lasagne Della Mamma. It has the ease of a neighbourhood wine bar with the appetite of a serious Italian kitchen, where one drink before dinner has a habit of ending somewhere around tiramisu.

Suburb: Toorak
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals

Stokehouse Pasta & Bar, St Kilda

Stokehouse Pasta & Bar brings Italian cooking to sand level beneath one of Melbourne’s great seaside names. Spinach and ricotta tortellini, pesto lasagne, crab and chilli spaghetti, raw crudo and focaccia with bagna càuda keep the coast close, while the tiramisu nods to Stokehouse history with a shape inspired by its famous Bombe Alaska.

Suburb: St Kilda
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Coastal Italian
Best For: Date night, Long lunch, Special occasion
Need To Know: Located beneath Stokehouse, directly by St Kilda beach.

Studio Amaro, Windsor

Studio Amaro knows its audience: Chapel Street diners who want Italian food, amaro and a room with after-dark nerve. Head chef Daniel Migliaccio moves through sourdough focaccia, tuna carpaccio, paccheri with oxtail ragu and hazelnut tartufo, while the drinks list gives Italy’s great bitter liqueurs serious attention. This is Italian dinner with every intention of becoming a second act.

Suburb: Windsor
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Group dining

Best Casual Italian Restaurants in Melbourne for Groups

Big tables, louder dinners and food nobody needs convincing to share. These restaurants handle birthdays, Friday nights and group chats with admirable efficiency.

Pepe’s Italian & Liquor, Melbourne CBD

Pepe’s does Italo-American excess exactly as Melbourne wants it: burgundy booths, cold martinis and plates that make sharing increasingly theoretical. The spicy rigatoni vodka remains non-negotiable, joined by San Daniele prosciutto with stracciatella and fried pizza dough, Venetian duck trompetti and the pepperoni-heavy Pepe’s-roni. Save whatever room remains for warm pistachio bomboloni.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italo-American
Best For: Group dining, Date night, Casual dining
Need To Know: Big-format CBD Italian made for pasta, pizza, martinis and louder tables.

Capitano, Carlton

Capitano sits somewhere between red-sauce clubhouse and clever neighbourhood trattoria, which explains why Carlton keeps filling its tables. Fermented pizza bases arrive under generous toppings, the wine list carries Bar Liberty DNA and the desserts are happily acquainted with amaro. Then there is the bone-in veal cutlet, an order capable of rewriting whatever sharing strategy the table had agreed upon.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italian-American
Best For: Group dining, Wine lovers, Locals

Rocco’s Bologna Discoteca, Fitzroy

Rocco’s is what happens when a cult sandwich shop grows up, keeps its sense of humour and learns to run a trattoria. The meatball sub remains part of the mythology, but bone marrow garlic bread, crudo, salumi, hand-rolled pasta and grill specials make the broader argument. Loud, saucy and much smarter than it initially lets on.

Suburb: Fitzroy
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italian-Australian
Best For: Group dining, Date night, Casual dining

Johnny, Vince & Sam’s, Carlton

Johnny, Vince & Sam’s turns Italian-Australian nostalgia into a full-table sport: vinyl booths, family lore, red sauce, clattering plates and portions that refuse to behave. Created by Sooshi Mango with chef Johnny Di Francesco, it moves from spaghetti and meatballs to golden cotolette and salsiccia-and-patate pizza. Nonna’s Good Room adds cocktails to the family album.

Suburb: Carlton
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italian-Australian
Best For: Group dining, Families, Casual dining

Marameo, Melbourne CBD

Marameo is CBD Italian with a little bad behaviour built into lunch. Marble, velvet, spritzes and crowded tables set the mood before cacio e pepe, vodka-sauced pasta and golden cotoletta arrive. It is the table for a city lunch that begins sensibly enough, then finds its way to dessert, another round and a diary that suddenly looks far more negotiable.

Suburb: Melbourne CBD
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Group dining, Long lunch, Date night

Best Italian Restaurants in Melbourne’s Suburbs

Excellent Italian food is hardly confined to the CBD and inner north. These tables make an excellent case for travelling a little further.

Buono Restaurant & Bar, Parkdale

Parkdale now has an award-winning argument for heading bayside for Italian. Buono moves between northern and southern Italy through handmade pasta, twice-cooked octopus, wagyu meatballs with ’nduja and seafood, backed by a serious global wine list. In 2026, it was named Victoria’s Italian Restaurant winner at the Restaurant & Catering Awards for Excellence, giving the local favourite some very official bragging rights.

Suburb: Parkdale
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Special occasion, Wine lovers, Locals

Mister Bianco, Kew

Mister Bianco’s Cotham Road home gives its Sicilian instincts room to stretch. The kitchen moves through wood-fired bread, porchetta, steak, salted cod and saffron spaghettini with prawns and bottarga, while adjoining Bianchetto keeps locals supplied with another excuse to stay nearby. Kew has long known it has one of Melbourne’s most assured suburban Italian restaurants.

Suburb: Kew
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Sicilian-inspired Italian
Best For: Locals, Special occasion, Long lunch

Tesoro Gastronomia, Balwyn North

Tesoro Gastronomia has made Balwyn North a very happy place to be hungry. Roman pinsa comes blistered and crisp at the edges, handmade pasta runs through the menu, and plates such as octopus carpaccio and paccheri amatriciana keep things firmly in dinner territory. The Italian sausage, broccolini and chilli pinsa is the one to circle. Giro d’Italia nights take the kitchen through a different Italian region each month, which keeps the regulars very well occupied.

Suburb: Balwyn North
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italian, Roman pinsa
Best For: Locals, Group dining, Casual dining

Abbiocco, Highett

Abbiocco gives Highett a pasta-and-wine bar worth crossing town for. Lesser-known Italian wines meet handmade pasta in a dark-green dining room lined with vintage Vermouth and Campari prints, while the menu currently runs from yellowfin tuna crudo and gnocco fritto with ventricina to truffle-laced gnocchi alla Valdostana, Mooloolaba prawn linguine with pistachio pesto and slow-cooked brisket pappardelle. Tiramisu, naturally, closes things out.

Suburb: Highett
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals

Harley & Rose, West Footscray

Harley & Rose is the westside Italian favourite that never needed to shout across town to be noticed. The Barkly Street room runs on wood-fired pizza, seasonal pasta, sharp little sides and a tiramisu with serious local mythology. It is casual and clever, exactly right for the Friday night when everyone finally admits they want pizza, wine and dessert.

Suburb: West Footscray
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Best For: Locals, Group dining, Date night

Umberto’s Espresso Bar, Thornbury

At Umberto’s Espresso Bar, regulars still glance at the wall before they look at the menu. The specials change, but the pleasures are reassuringly familiar: five-hour casarecce al ragù di vitello, orecchiette with broccoli, anchovies and chilli, meatballs, calamari fritti, cotoletta and tiramisu. More than a decade on, it still feels like one of those High Street places people return to without needing a reason.

Suburb: Thornbury
Price Guide: $$
Cuisine: Italian
Best For: Locals, Casual dining, Group dining

Borgo Food & Wine, Ascot Vale

Borgo Food & Wine is Union Road’s regional Italian table with real depth, drawing on Abruzzo and Piemonte through house-made salumi, focaccia, burrata, octopus salad, vitello tonnato and agnolotti del plin. Slow-cooked meats and an Italian-led wine list round out a menu that rewards settling in. Ascot Vale knows exactly what it has here.

Suburb: Ascot Vale
Price Guide: $$$
Cuisine: Regional Italian
Best For: Date night, Wine lovers, Locals

Best Italian Restaurants in Melbourne: FAQs

What is the best Italian restaurant in Melbourne?

Tipo 00 in the Melbourne CBD remains one of the city’s strongest choices for handmade pasta, while Florentino offers the grandeur of a classic Melbourne dining institution and Di Stasio brings art, Italian cooking and unmistakable personality across its St Kilda, CBD and Carlton locations. The right booking depends on the occasion: Tipo 00 for pasta, Florentino for a long lunch and Di Stasio when dinner should carry a little theatre.

Where can I find the best handmade pasta in Melbourne?

Tipo 00 and Osteria Ilaria sit a few doors apart on Little Bourke Street and remain two of the CBD’s finest pasta destinations. Alt Pasta Bar on Niagara Lane takes a more experimental approach, while Lagotto in Fitzroy North and Park Street Pasta & Wine in South Melbourne make excellent reasons to leave the city grid. Carlton’s Super Norma is a looser, more casual option for sauce-heavy southern Italian pasta.

Is Lygon Street still the best place for Italian food in Melbourne?

Lygon Street remains central to Melbourne’s Italian food story, particularly around Carlton and Brunswick East, but the city’s strongest Italian restaurants now spread far beyond it. 400 Gradi and Bar Idda make Brunswick East essential, while Scopri, Bar Olo and Capitano broaden the Carlton picture. Some of Melbourne’s other defining Italian tables now sit in the CBD, Fitzroy, St Kilda, South Melbourne and the inner south.

What is the best Italian restaurant in Melbourne for a special occasion?

Florentino is difficult to beat for old-school grandeur, with chandeliers, polished service and decades of Melbourne history. Il Bacaro suits a more intimate occasion, while Cecconi’s remains reliable for birthdays, business lunches and celebratory dinners. Rina’s in Armadale is the choice for something smaller and more personal, built around a candlelit seasonal set menu.

Where are the best Italian restaurants in Melbourne’s suburbs?

Excellent Italian cooking extends well beyond Melbourne’s traditional Italian precincts. Lulu in Malvern pairs handmade pasta with an Italian-heavy wine list in a tiny neighbourhood room, while Mister Bianco brings Sicilian instincts to Kew. Abbiocco gives Highett a serious handmade-pasta destination and Harley & Rose remains one of the west’s best addresses for wood-fired pizza, seasonal pasta and tiramisu.

Still hungry? Keep following the sauce trail with our guides to Melbourne’s best pizza, wine bars and cocktail spots. After all, one excellent bowl of pasta has a funny way of turning into another booking.