Ciao Cielo – Dani Valent

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Ciao Cielo: 171 Bay Street, Port Melbourne, 9645 1568

My score: 3.5/5

Some restaurants fill your heart before you even look at a menu. Ciao Cielo is one of them. It’s a customer-focused neighbourhood restaurant suffused with a gorgeous glow. I love it. It’s cosy and welcoming and it’s aware of something crucial: Bay Street, Port Melbourne isn’t a place to expand culinary horizons. Rather, it’s a place where people want to be fed, cosseted and remembered. Kate Dickins does the remembering, running the 35-seat dining room with a happy lack of pretension. Her partner Bryan Nelson (A La Greque, Stokehouse, Walters Wine Bar) is the chef.

The heartfelt vibe must have a lot to do with the restaurant’s origins. Dickins’ aunty opened a gelati bar on the premises a year ago as a tribute to her parents who died in the Black Saturday bushfires. The aunt found it all too hard but Dickins didn’t want the tribute to fizzle. She took the place on and turned it into a modern version of the kind of restaurant her grandparents loved. If only the honouring of memories was always this tasty.

The food is Italian: it’s not fancy but it’s elevated beyond the ordinary by great technique, a few unthreatening twists and some smart presentation. Serves are very generous and pricing isn’t painful. Families come in early and the spag bol gets a work out, enlivened by the subtle addition of star anise and orange. While the kids spray themselves with mince, mum and dad rhapsodise over the mussels: chargrilled in their own juices and topped with bread crumbs, crisped oregano, prosciutto and a bucketload of garlic butter. A lovely roasted rack of lamb dish features four points of tender pink meat and a ciabatta bread-and-butter pudding layered with oregano, tomato and olives. The pudding is a family recipe; potatoes would have been more satisfying but the backstory is charming. Pork belly ticked the fat-rendered, skin-crisped boxes; it’s served with braised cavolo nero and jammy poached pear. Some flavours are overused across the menu as a whole – star anise and prosciutto, for example – but I’m sure the impetus is generous and celebratory so it feels churlish to complain.

Desserts include a crowd-pleasing, super sweet caramel plate crammed with peanut butter icecream, honeycomb, creme caramel and brulee banana. Like everything here, it’s honest and giving, speaking of a heart and spirit that’s warm and captivating.

See their website.

First Published in The Age,February 27, 2011

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2017-09-18T18:25:53+10:00

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