Time Out Melbourne never writes starred reviews from hosted experiences – Time Out covers restaurant and bar bills for reviews so that readers can trust our critique.
Lagotto is not a new restaurant by Melbourne standards. It was 2019 when it opened as a contemporary Italian café-slash-deli on the bottom floor of a Fitzroy North apartment complex. What followed was the hellscape we grimly remember as 2020 – year of the Black Summer bushfires and the first wave of pandemic lockdowns. A tumultuously timed opening is perhaps one reason why the venue went so unnoticed by those outside its five-kilometre radius for so long. Or perhaps, simply, the offering took a little while to find its feet. But as we come to discover one Sunday afternoon, Lagotto is now in a golden era.
It’s always been a handsome space, artfully designed by Flack Studios and boasting a rich burgundy terrazzo with marble inlays. Sunlight bounces off the restaurant’s timber and peachy pink walls, and the vintage Italian aesthetics evoke an old-timey cinematic glamour. For all its design award-winning elegance, there’s an irresistibly casual feel to the fitout. This is a place just as suitable for an afternoon wine with a gaggle of pals as it is for anniversaries and the like.
Upon arrival, we’re escorted to the bar and armed with a drinks list to get the party started. It’s awesome to see what I remember in its early days as a fairly sleepy-looking restaurant pumping now at full capacity. Staff whizz across the floor with ease, and our barside perch is a front-row seat to all the food-prepping magic. If we were hungry before, we’re starving now upon seeing a showstopping gnoccho fritto in the works.
At such a well-stocked bar, where does one even begin? For me, a smashable orange wine from Giovino is the ticket. The Sicilian winemaker has kept catarratto grapes on skins for ten days to illuminate the wine’s orange blossom and salty-citrus characters – a mouthwatering savoury drop to whet the palate for what’s to come. The Fig Spritz, an ice-cold concoction of Pot and Still Fig Aperitif, prosecco, soda and lemon, is my partner’s foray of choice into Lagotto’s top-notch drinks game.
The food menu is from Italian-born head chef Matteo Fulchiati (ex-Osteria Ilaria) and our first dish is a palette of the flag’s colours: gleaming red bluefin tuna crudo and jammy strawberries, bone-white kefir and verdant nasturtium leaves. Blushing from the bowl, the fresh tuna melts in the mouth, its slightly metallic flavour brightened by zingy wild garlic and kefir. Those summery pops of strawberry are a genius addition, and I can’t help but think this is the most impressive Italian-style raw fish starter I’ve had. Maybe ever.
Next comes that gnoccho fritto we’d eyed behind the bar earlier. It’s a pastry that when plunged into boiling oil, puffs up like a golden pillow. Lagotto’s vertical stack incorporates blankets of velvety parmesan curd, tangy pickles and a slice of translucent prosciutto, before being dusted with briny parmesan snow. The warm, salty prosciutto fat seductively renders on the tongue, and the delicate gnocco crumbles on first bite. Time stops. I’ve always cringed a bit at the word ‘sinful’ to describe rich foods, a word that’s been splattered across tired ads and boxes of chocolate cake mix in supermarkets longer than I’ve walked the planet – but I can really think of no better word for this decadent mindgasm of a dish. A mad cackle of glee escapes me, a sound my partner claims he has never heard before.
Fruity vermentino from Fin Wines clears the palate for the arrival of the next dish: roasted celeriac with hazelnut creme and kisses of burnt honey and pecorino. Celeriac is one of those ingredients that sneaks up on you, deceptively simple but loaded with earthy complexity. The bittersweet kiss of burnt honey in tandem with pecorino’s umami is just understated enough to ensure that the vegetable remains the star of the show.
The rest of our insanely delicious luncheon unfolds at the same standard. Fresh buffalo ricotta and beetroot tortellini are a masterclass in perfect pasta-making, lifted to dizzying heights in their subtly smoked butter and poppy seed emulsion. The squid ink spaghetti with Victorian blue swimmer crab, chilli and garlic is a dish every Italian food-loving Melburnian knows well, but Lagotto’s is sensational, scattered with a generous portion of bottarga.
Lagotto’s famously fluffy wholemeal sourdough focaccia with malted butter is the additional carb we don’t necessarily need (but definitely appreciate), while a salad of Days Walk farm leaves with honey and mandarin elegantly balances out the feast’s richness.
We’re pretty full by this stage, but it’s hard to resist a sweet treatdessert when everything’s been so good. Dessert, once again, displays Lagotto’s knack for balancing flavour. Fat bombolini threatens a sugar coma, but puffs of sour yoghurt foam and a not-too-sweet honey and bergamot ice cream keep the dish in sophisticated, grown-up territory.
One benefit of sitting at the bar is that you can chat with the experts. Our friendly bartender hears of my penchant for amaro, and with a knowing smile, produces a dusty bottle from their vintage collection: a 1963 Gambarotta Fernet Menta they purchased at auction. “Would you like to try?” Resisting the urge to ask this man “il papa è Cattolico?” (“is the pope a Catholic?”), I nod my assent, before savouring the glass of seductively dark liquor he’s placed before me.
There are countless restaurants in Melbourne where you can enjoy exceptional takes on classic Italian recipes, but where Lagotto stands out is in its playfulness. From pairing tuna with strawberries and kefir to pouring rare spirits from the motherland, the restaurant’s generosity and creativity are to be commended. Thank you, Lagotto, for an unforgettable afternoon.