GUISEPPE ARNALDO & SONS
Crown Complex
Southgate, Melbourne

When a place serves you a simple appetiser – a bowl of olives – and you think ‘these are the best olives that I have ever eaten in my life’ then you know you are in for a helluva Italian meal.

I mean, what can you do with olives? You can ruin them. Make them taste as ‘un-olivey’ as you can, by stuffing them with pimento, goat’s cheese, crème cheese, or stick them on a toothpick with a chunk of cheese or a cocktail onion.

I don’t know what they do with them at the new Guiseppe Arnaldo & Sons  -- the latest addition to the string of top class restaurants at Crown. They take large, juicy Kalamata olives (the best in the world) and they seem to poach them slightly and serve them in a shallow pool of oil slightly spiced with a sole, whole red pepper.

They actually have six different olive types from Italy, Spain and Australia to choose from. From Italian Taggiasche Black and Collonna Brown to Spanish Arbequinas and Australian Wild Brown and Kalamata Black.

Beeewdiful! As Con the Fruiterer would say about that other Mediterranean home of fine olives and olive oil.

Combine those with a few slices of the best salami you’ll ever eat and you are well on your way to a terrific Italian grazing experience. It shouldn’t surprise people.

 The antecedents for this place are impeccable.  There’s a clue in the name. Guiseppe honours Guiseppe Marchetti whose son Robert comes to this establishment via Marchetti’s Latin and Marchetti’s Tuscan Grill before opening the phenomenally successful Icebergs at Bondi in Sydney with Maurizio Terzini from the trail-blazing Caffé e Cucina and Il Bacaro in Melbourne and then Otto’s at Woolloomooloo in Sydney. Maurizio’s dad was Arnaldo.

The menu at GA&S is massive. You could dine here a dozen times and still being trying new things. And the attention to detail –despite the size of the menu – is impressive. I mentioned the salami. It’s Marchetti’s own recipe. He says it is made with ‘100% Black Berkshire free range pigs with traditional spices and curing techniques. These products are gluten  and phosphate free with no artificial preservatives or artificial ingredients’. It shows in the taste.

The antipasti is so varied, and so good, you should ideally dine here in a group of four or six but the lunchtime we were there the place was also heavily populated by business suits. It’s just a healthy walk across the bridge from the law courts and the legal district at the bottom of the CBD on the other side of the Yarra.

A crunchy starter was a basket of Clarence River school prawns dusted with oregano. They’re pan fried whole and you can eat heads and tails but many people would leave the heads.

Mrs. Nosebag raved about the plate of baby beetroot with goat’s curd, black cabbage and spring onions served in the beet juice. It was so good I didn’t even get to taste it.

For a main she had Hervey Bay scallops with a watercress, raddish and green chilli salad. They called them ‘hand dived wild Hervey Bay scallops’ which sounded like some guy in his Speedos plucking them individually off the ocean floor.

There were sides of peas, shallots, mint, basil and air dried ricotta and a dish of Borlotti beans, with celery, carrots, onions and herbs with a balsamic infusion. That one sounded like a Blazing Saddles special.

I scanned the menu and like the newfangled, superspy, GoogleWorld search that I tested – and on which I could even pick out the summer table on my own balcony – I zeroed in one of the Frutti di Mare dishes.

Had my name written all over it. Clams Casino. And it was a jackpot of a dish. Tiny clams, big surf clams, some periwinkles in the shell, with chicory fronds and hot ciabatta in a broth you can mop up with a fresh bun provided as a utensil.

And none of it was expensive. The seafood main dishes all between $25 and $29 each. The side dishes $9.  The antipasti dishes between $14 and $18.

I would be remiss if I didn’t pass on some lawful carnivore knowledge. There are plenty of meat dishes: veal, pork, sliced rib eye for under thirty bucks and a couple of big meat dishes. Like a one kilogram T-bone steak for $88. But it serves ‘two or more people’ and takes 35 minutes to prepare. And there’s a 400 gram Wagyu Angus rib eye for two at $95.

If you’ve got room try the baked chocolate pot with crunchy chocolate pearls, like beads of chocolate caviar, served refreshingly cold.

You may notice there’s no phone number at the start of this review. No point. They don’t take reservations which is a bummer because, even though they’ve only been open a couple of months and the place is huge, it gets packed out most days for lunch and dinner.

Guiseppe Arnaldo & Sons  is just along the promenade  from Nobu, co-owned by a certain Hollywood actor, which gives me the perfect closing line:

‘Robert DeNiro’s waiting… talk in Italian’.