At the station end of Glen Waverley’s delicious Kingsway dining strip, a glass lift spills you into Gambino’s fifth-floor restaurant, a chic blue-velvet cave with lamp-lit tables. You can practically see the theatre curtain going up for eye fillet topped with a sturdy, round raviolo that gushes with mushroom sauce when pierced. A tricky dish, it pays off in spectacle, the flavoursome sauce pooling perfectly onto the plate.

But it’s not all bells and whistles. The crescentina, a fried-dough sandwich from Modena in northern Italy, is pure, button-pushing delight. Tortellini are filled with chive-spiked goat’s curd and settled in a buttery emulsion with friends roasted pumpkin and parmesan cream.

If the 90-seat restaurant is Milan, the sixth-floor rooftop is Capri, with accents in sunny yellow. Heaters and shutters do their darnedest to turn Melbourne winter into Euro summer, gamely assisted by spicy prawn pizza and cocktails like the “strawgroni”.

Best for: Aperitivo, dinner and kick-ons all in one venue.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.