Featuring: Oster Eatery, Frederic and Fred’s Bar, The Hardware Club…

MELBOURNE is embracing comfort food, especially seeing the opening of venues serving French and Italian-inspired menus. It’s going to be a bright 2020!
Inspired by the informal osteria of northern Italy, chef Nicola Romano and manager Osvaldo Tognella have opened Oster Eatery on Bridge Rd, Richmond.
Romano and Tognella are both from Lombardy in northern Italy but actually met in Melbourne in late 2015 when Tognella took a job at Artusi in Southbank where Romano was head chef. The pair connected, both having had extensive international experience over the last 15 years. Tognella spent time at the Bulgari Hotel in Milan, two Ritz Carltons, in Istanbul, Turkey and Okinawa, Japan, adding a stint at Coombe Yarra Valley before the move to Melbourne. Romano has cooked in Florence as sous chef for Entiana Osmenzeza at Se.sto on Arno followed by two internships in San Sebastian at Martin Berasategui (3 Michelins) and one at restaurant Viajante in east London (1 Michelin star).
The focus at Oster Eatery is on the traditional, community-based idea of the osteria, but the pair mix it up with contemporary menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner, based on local produce, matched with a sharp list of Australian drinks.
Romano serves a seasonal lunch menu from Monday to Saturday; perhaps a salumi plate of prosciutto from Borgo (Queensland), mortadella from Mr Cannubi and capocollo from De Palma (New South Wales) next to sourdough bread. O’Connor beef cheek with rice polenta features on the main courses – and pasta, all made in-house – includes handmade casoncelli, with ricotta and spinach, sage, 48-month-old grana and buckwheat gnocchi with pumpkin, capers and almonds.
The chef embraces more culinary freedom at dinner. Guests can choose a five-course tasting menu with or without matching wines, or order a la carte. Move through dishes like fior di latte with smoked eggplant and romesco; risotto vialone nano – a semi-fino rice variety – with red capsicum, black garlic and bottarga, and free range lamb loin from the Lachlan Valley, NSW, with asparagus, peas and chicory.
“We see Oster as if you’re coming to our home,” says Romano, “we have an open kitchen, the room is open so it’s welcoming and easy.”
Tognella’s wine list is all-Australian and succinct, with a selection of 42 bottles with 15 wines by-the-glass. The list changes regularly, and he seeks out, “organic or biodynamic, single-vineyard and new wave and European grape varieties grown and made in Australia”. 76-78 Bridge Rd, Richmond; phone (03) 9428 0749.
Third-generation restaurateurs Nathalie, Edouard and Antoine Reymond (Bistro Gitan, L’Hotel Gitan) have opened the doors to Frederic and Fred’s Bar, presenting all-day European dining to Cremorne locals and destination diners with the hospitality for which the Reymond family is renowned.
There are two adjacent venues – the relaxed, buzzy Fred’s Bar and refined restaurant Frederic – the spaces serve separate menus, each a collaboration between the Reymonds and head chef Nick Deligiannis (formerly Petit Tracteur on the Mornington Peninsula).

At Frederic, diners can enjoy a modern European culinary offering, with dishes from the Reymonds’ native France, along with neighbouring Spain and Italy. The menu has a steak focus, complemented by an ever-changing selection of six seasonal specials that may see broad bean and pea risotto with a Grana Padano emulsion on the menu next to a potato waffle, asparagus salad, hazelnuts, smoked goats cheese.
Main courses continue the local theme with snapper a la plancha, zucchini puree, fish bacon and baked swede, and glazed lamb scotch fillet with roasted cauliflower puree, Worcestershire sauce and greens.
Fred’s Bar, is an all-day adventure where guests pair morning coffees from 5 Senses with fresh pastries or a selection of European breakfast specials. A menu of small plates is served from 11:30am with house-cured conserves with toasted baguette, preserved lemon, tomato, oregano and crispy fried rockling baguette, cabbage slaw, tartare sauce and a delicious Victorian Southern Ranges grass-fed porterhouse marble +4, shoestring fries and salad. 9-11 Cremorne St, Cremorne; phone (03) 9089 7224.
Stating it to be a “Melbourne restaurant that serves Italian food,” chef Nicola Dusi (D.O.C Pizzeria, Baby Pizza, Chin Chin) and Andrea Ceriani (+39 Pizzeria ) have opened The Hardware Club on the city’s Hardware Lane on the site that housed Ciao Pizza Napoli for many years.
The name pays homage to the site’s history as a social club for hardware trade members in the 1920s. Head chef Dusi believes food should be “accessible, understandable and craveable” and has set out to create a menu that is nurturing rather than trailblazing, “a place for those in-the-know looking for a European and Italian dining experience in a relaxed space,” he says.
In taking over the location of the family-owned Ciao Pizza Napoli, the new restaurateurs spent time getting to know its clientele, their likes and dislikes, and what they would like to see carried on, resulting in the treasured traditional pizza recipes being kept on the menu during lunch service, while a more extensive dinner menu is on offer in the evenings.
Italian classics will be presented with contemporary twists and include ossobuco ravioli Milanese with saffron, garlic, lemon and parsley; an Italian fennel and chilli sausage wheel with silverbeet and chilli oil, or perhaps ricotta gnocchi, fresh broad beans and vignarola of spring vegetables. 43 Hardware Lane, Melbourne; phone (03) 9670 1110.