Belasco

Overview

At Belasco, a 250-gram filet mignon is flambéed in Cognac beside your table and finished with peppercorn sauce, and the tagliatelle Alfredo gets its final toss in front of you too. The CBD restaurant takes its name and its sense of showmanship from Broadway's Belasco Theatre, and the whole menu is built around Italian-American cooking from New York's classic old-school eateries — dishes made for passing across the table rather than guarding on your own plate.

Belasco opened on Tuesday, September 15 on Flinders Lane, taking over the space that was formerly Lollo inside W Melbourne. Chef Xavier Tocco leads the kitchen, and the brief from the team is a room that's "generous and a little theatrical, without taking itself too seriously," says W Melbourne general manager Krister Svensson.

Even the menu is staged like a night at the theatre. Starters are the Opening Acts — garlic butter Parker House rolls, clams casino and an oregano-crusted tuna crudo with capers and Sicilian olives — before the pastas take the stage: pork and veal meatballs with spaghetti, spicy rigatoni alla vodka topped with stracciatella, and that tableside Alfredo, finished with pangrattato and a pancetta crumb. The Cognac-flambéed filet mignon is the headliner, and the most theatrical thing to order if you're dining in a group.

But don't overlook the Support Cast, as the sides are billed. That's where you'll find the real scene-stealer: a lobster mash of creamy mashed potato loaded with lobster and finished with shellfish bisque. Order it for the table, then try not to fight over the last spoonful.

Aesthetics-wise, it's all old New York glamour — polished walnut tables set with red-rimmed china, black-and-gold marble and sheer curtains drawn across large windows — and the whole thing feels romantic and a little bit glitzy. It's the kind of place you'll want to dress up for.

Naturally, drinks lean hard on the martini. They arrive with a silver dish of olives on ice, and the dedicated martini program runs from properly dirty serves to playful twists like the floral Pearl Street Gibson, made with Archie Rose Signature Dry Gin, Martini Bianco and herbal saline.

A martini at Belasco

Belasco also runs a string of weekly specials that make it easy to drop in more often than you'd planned. There's Martini Mondays and $39 Steak Tuesdays, a $25 express lunch at the bar on weekdays and a happy hour from 4.30–6.30pm on weekdays, with $12 beer, wine, house spirits and spritzes. A bottomless brunch is also on the way later this year.

Images: Lumea Photo.