EAT > Roma, Melbourne (16/20)

Melbourne lives and breathes Italian food, (Florentino, Grossi, Il Solito Posto, Il Bacaro, Distasio Cita, Trattoria Emilia, Tippo 00, Grill Americano and the list goes on) so it takes a certain nerve to open yet another Italian restaurant in the CBD and insist it is something different. Roma does exactly that. Tucked into the courtyard garden at 120 Collins Street, between a glass office tower and a 19th-century church, this is Con Christopoulos’s love letter to the trattorias of the Eternal City. It isn’t a generic Italian or a pan-regional greatest hits. It is Rome: the offal, the bitter greens, the artichokes, the neon and the white tablecloths. It is generous, handsome and great fun, and it already feels as though it has always been there.

AMBIENCE >

Finding the door is part of the ritual. You wander through the greenery of the courtyard, past the gelateria window and the glowing neon sign that looks lifted from the title card of an old Italian film, then climb up into the dining room. It is glamorous without shouting about it: green marble, chequered stone floors, vintage Italian lamps on every table, chandeliers, and comfortable leather seating. The white lattice ceiling is a nod to Trattoria al Moro, Christopoulos’s favourite Roman restaurant, and it does real work, softening the noise so the room buzzes without getting loud.

The detail is close to obsessive. The grille on the terrace façade is copied from a Roman house seen briefly in a documentary on Sergio Leone. The cutlery matches what is used at the Fendi hotel in Rome. The pastel crockery is Ginori. The office tower’s sealed, tinted windows were swapped for motorised frames that swing open, so on a warm evening the room fills with air from the Russell Street treeline.

There are around 100 seats across three areas: the main dining room, with larger tables for long lunches and celebrations; a balcony among the Russell Street trees; and a covered, heated terrace looking out over the courtyard garden it shares with St Michael’s Church. The centrepiece is a monumental marble-topped antipasto table, part altar and part still life, piled with whatever the season brings.

Each area holds it own but the main dining room is the nicest of the three and those tables feel central to the restaurant, where the balcony is long and narrow which holds its own limitations and the terrace, while heated is more exposed to the elements.

EAT >

The menu is long and laid out the way a proper Roman ristorante does it: spuntini, pasta, soup, fish, meat, vegetables, cheese, dessert, and a whole section of offal. Matt Wilkinson’s kitchen, with head chef Anthony Thalassinos, leans into the quinto quarto, Rome’s “fifth quarter”, which turns cuts the city’s poor once lived on into some of its most beloved dishes.

Start at the antipasto table with crusty bread and a bittersweet peppery (Cobram) Victorian olive oil. Suppli are a must: crisp outside and soft and rich inside. Then there’s the fish crudo of the day, simply sliced and dressed with olive oil and salt. If you’re feeling brave, try the lamb brains, crisp and creamy with caper salsa, chicken livers wrapped in prosciutto, or a properly saucy trippa alla romana slow-cooked in tomato and wine. Pajata and coratella are there for the purists.

Pasta is where Roma really sings. The paccheri alla baronessa is the dish everyone talks about: big, velvety tubes in a sauce of chicken liver, mushroom, white wine and lemon thyme, finished with a little mascarpone. Ricotta and wild greens ravioli in sugo is a gentler way in. Meat and fish are sold by weight. Beef fillet comes in 100-gram portions, and there are rose veal chops, crumbed pork scotch neck and lamb shoulder chops from the grill. You choose your whole fish from the ice-filled drawers beside the kitchen. Vegetables matter just as much: braised artichokes with thyme and mint, and bitter Roman greens such as radicchio and puntarelle, dressed with little more than oil and lemon.

Save room for the gelato and sorbetto made in house. The salted caramel is boldly salty, and the dark chocolate sorbetto has the depth of a good mousse. Or finish with the crostata, made by Rita Macali, formerly of Supermaxi.

DRINK >

The wine list is the quiet Italian revelation. Christopoulos built it around Lazio, the region around Rome and one of Italy’s most underrated. He travelled to Italy’s largest wine fair to bring in bottles that are almost impossible to find in Australia. Expect crisp, food-friendly whites from bellone, trebbiano and malvasia, the grapes behind Frascati, a once-unfashionable name that deserves another look. Small Australian, French and wider Italian producers fill out the cellar, and bottle prices are very fair. Drinks are overseen by Warwick Harty, a Christopoulos stalwart for some 30 years, and of course the classic cocktails are also excellent.

CONCLUSION >

Roma is a beautifully considered restaurant, and it is generous at every turn: in the welcome, the free bread and oil, the size of the pasta and the warmth of the service. Giovanni Patane runs the floor with real flair, keeps his bookings in a large red ledger and holds tables back every day for walk-ins. Not every dish lands perfectly, and the offal-heavy menu won’t be for everyone, but the pasta, the antipasti, the Lazio wines and the sheer pleasure of the room more than make up for it. It’s ideal for a long lunch, a celebration, or a terrace breakfast before work. The Age Good Food Guide gave Roma a hat within weeks of opening, and named it a finalist for both New Restaurant of the Year and Restaurant of the Year. It’s easy to see why.

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Image Credit | ALMANAK & Roma

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