And the award for Yellowest Dish in Melbourne goes to:the prawn-saffron pasta at Mister Bianco. Spaghettini with the particular sproing of a good house-made pasta is doused in saffron-scented butter and teamed with whole prawns.

It would be easy to make a meal simply of bread and various nibbles. The wood fired oven turns out focaccia and sfincione,the thick Sicilian pizza-adjacent snack. There are fried zucchini flowers with truffle honey,and meaty sardines over sweet agrodolce. Roasted baby beets and turnips are cooked to fudgy perfection,and a brazenly rich beef cheek dish arrives over silken cauliflower puree.

The restaurant recently moved – the original opened in 2010 – and now leans into maximalism:amber glass dividers,cascading fabrics and staff in multicoloured shirts. But the food and the wine (covering mostly Italy and Australia) remain as good as ever.

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Melbourne’s Eastern Suburbs

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