Mezzo Bar & Grill

I just loved the food and I just loved the true hospitality. The host is warm, friendly and actually remembers you. Catering for dietary and individual pallets was not a problem. The presentation was the best I’ve seen in a long time and the food itself was fresh, cooked to perfection and generous servings. Thanks mezzo!

Very nice food and staff. Excellent espresso martinis and you should definitely try the antipasto platter. Sicily pizza is a must for the seafood lovers.

Excellent food well complemented by the wine list and attentive staff made this dining experience very pleasant.

Ordinary. Some of the dishes were ambitious but spoiled from a lack of attention to balancing the flavours.
I had a special for entrée; bruschetta of cured salmon with lemon ricotta and rocket pesto. The pesto was overpoweringly bitter, and I ended up scraping it off. Even then the cured salmon was surprisingly bland and tasteless. My partner had the duck prosciutto salad. This was over sweet due to the balsamic reduction with thick chewy slices of duck, saved only by the lovely bocconcini. She restored some of the balance by adding in my discarded rocket pesto!
Things improved with the mains. I had the bug agnolotti with crustacean bisque. This was just spot on, but came topped with a big clump of julienned green beans which distracted from the textures and flavours of the agnolotti and bisque. My partner had the gnocchi with Gorgonzola which was overloaded with Gorgonzola and quite bitter, saved only by the candied walnuts which offset the bitterness.
For dessert my partner had the pistachio panacotta with a dollop of raspberry compote which she found delicious.
I ordered some lovely Gorgonzola and Taleggio and was served with generous slices of both. I love good cheese and was salivating over them, when to my horror I discovered that they had both come straight out of the fridge and were as hard as a yoga instructor’s arse! I complained to one of the wait staff who apologised and said they would tell the kitchen and then disappeared, leaving me with my cheese bricks.
The wine we had was great and the wine list not too bad, but could have offered more wine by the glass.
On our way out after having paid the bill (sans tip), I was waiting for front of house to ask me how everything was; my opportunity to give them customer feedback. Sadly, we were allowed to sashay out without anyone preventing the door from hitting us on the arse on the way out.
I found this place in the Good Food Guide and rang for a reservation at 6:50 pm Friday night for dinner at 7 pm and got a table straight away! I should have been alerted then! With so many outstanding restaurants in the immediate vicinity the patchiness of the food is surprising and disappointing. They don’t really seem to care, so why should I?
I won’t be back.

Mezzo Bar & Grill was (sort of) the very first restaurant that I visited in Melbourne, visiting Australia for only the second time in my life. I had no idea at that time that I would end up meeting someone, falling in love, and then both of us leaving two different continents to come to a new third, that of Australia, to live and work… but that’s another story.
At the time, it was, I believe «Oysters on Lt. Bourke» — which was quite amusing as I asked the concierge of the Grand Hyatt where I should go to get some good oysters, and he said «Oysters on Lt. Bourke, on Lt. Bourke» … it probably sounded like a better restaurant name until someone had to actually say it out loud.
The décor is nearly identical to what it was, and even the menu hasn’t changed that much, but obviously as an Italian slanted bar and grill, Mezzo is no longer focussed on the oysters.
Which isn’t to say they don’t have them, they do, and they were very good! They even have an Oysters Happy Hour from 1730 till 1830 daily, where they’re half price. We actually managed to slip in under the wire by 5 minutes last night and they actually honoured this — kudos!
So with that sort of start, why am I only giving this three stars?
Well, let’s start with that and get it out of the way: The service.
The staff were friendly, generally attentive, but, with Mezzo being located in Melbourne’s «theatre district» they get a LOT of people coming in just before, or just after, a show. I can imagine the pressures this puts on a kitchen, and Mezzo seems to give priority to people who are off to see something at the theatre.
Indeed, the women who sat down next to us, AFTER us, got their starters, mains, and dessert before we ever saw our mains.
We sat there a long time with just our water. My wine glass empty, and the two bread rolls long since vanished within. I did manage to catch the eye of one of the waiters or floor managers and got another glass of wine, but, ideally, I think a note of apology, or a check-​in for more wine/​bubbles (wife was on bubbles) or even another roll would have been good. It was a good 20 minutes of empty table here, folks…
But, the woman who actually served us our meal was VERY apologetic about this. I actually got the sense that she felt a bit ashamed that it took us so long to be served. She wasn’t just paying lip serve, she genuinely conveyed a since of «we need to do better» and I appreciated that. We didn’t complain, we were in no rush, and I fully appreciate that HAD we been off to see a show, we would have loved the extra speed.
Now for the meal itself: Great stuff. We started with a dozen mixed oysters. Curiously, the waiter didn’t even know which oysters they had on and had to go ask… but they were very good, fresh, and we had them «natural» style.
We then shared the scallops starter, which also was delicious. My wife consumed hers before I even blinked!
For our mains we went with the spanner crab risotto for myself (fantastic!!!) and my wife had the gnocchi — also very very good. As a side, the steamed spinach went very well.
We didn’t have any dessert, but I know that they’ve got a good tiramisu here, and next time we may give that a shot.
So, a delicious meal, but a bit of room for improvement for the overall end-​to-​end experience. We weren’t too put off by those detractors, and look forward to returning!

I booked a table reservation at Mezzo Bar on a hunch for mothers day last year. I am not sure how I stumbled across it but I knew they were offering a special Mothers’ day package so I just made a reservation.
I was not disappointed, in fact I was over joyed with the experience in its entirety. From the moment we were greeted at the door by the owner, the 3 courses and all the knowledge and recommendations that came with it to the small mothers day gift that was placed on each table welcoming all mothers.
The atmosphere was perfect, cozy, warm and traditional while style maintaining a sophisticated cosmopolitan vibe. I highly recommend this place and will be making a return trip.