Di Stasio

This highly acclaimed café and bar have been serving the St Kilda neighborhood for over 25 years, featuring delectable Italian cuisine served by white-jacketed servers. Apart from the food, Bar Di Stasio is known for its excellent cocktail concoctions and hand-selected wine selection, which includes wines from Di Stasio's own vineyard.

Every design feature speaks of finessed material handling, durability, and teasing tensions between classical and vernacular Italianate influences, just as the menu, which is based on traditional, seasonally responsive Italian cuisine. The small sixty-seat dining room is an architectural setting that subordinates spatial ambiance and ambience beautifully and carefully, creating a good balance between the visually spectacular and the comforting. Powell has managed significant contrasts within its tiny confines: old and pristine, bright street-front tables and shady corner places, whimsical ornaments and tasteful proprietary furniture.

Sure, they offer dinner, but if you really want to see some magic, go to Di Stasio for lunch. It's not a cheap date unless you go for the express option, which includes two dishes and a glass of wine for $35. Especially when you venture beyond Di Stasio's Coldstream chardonnay and pinot noir and into Italian cellars. What's on the menu, though, is still classic and approachable Italian - eggplant melanzane, Caprese salads, and steaks, all of which are often prepared simply with a slug of excellent oil.

Location: 31 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda Victoria 3182

Website: https://www.distasio.com.au