Scopri Italian Food & Wine

This is a beautiful, small, quiet dining room with amazingly good Italian food and discreet, polished service. There’s a menu which is supplemented by some daily specials, some of which are on a blackboard and some of which are described by the staff.
We started with salmon carpaccio and a caprese salad, each nicely presented and seasoned. The pasta courses were a fruitti de mer with squid ink spaghetti and a hand rolled Spaghetti Neri alla Chitarra. They were both outstanding in flavor and presentation. One of us also had a flavorful King George whiting, perfectly done and stuffed with bread crumbs, raisins and capers. The pistachio semifreddo with figs was good, but the rest of the meal was better.
This restaurant is a gem. It could easily get crowded so bookings are a good idea. Open for lunch and dinners Tuesday through Friday and dinner only on Saturday.

I visited Scopri a couple of weeks ago, on a quick trip home to Melbourne after having lived overseas since the start of the year. I won’t mince words here; it was one of the best restaurant experiences I’ve had in a long, long time, and it made me miss home something chronic.
This is Italian food as you will never find in Carlton’s main drags. Dishes are based on traditional Italian flavours and ingredients (think rabbit, goat, zucchini flowers), and are refined without losing any of the charm that makes real Italian food so wonderful. The wait staff is attentive, friendly and thoughtful, and the ambiance is intimate without overdoing it — dimmed lighting, a nice amount of space between tables, and a pleasantly soft babble of noise.
In Italian, «Scopri» means «discover», and — fittingly — the menu encourages you to try seasonal produce that you might not see all that often. I started with the fried zucchini flower stuffed with ricotta and basil, which was a great version of a dish I always love. The batter wasn’t heavy, and the filling was light as a cloud, the way it’s meant to be. I then moved on to the homemade chestnut pappardelle with rabbit ragu. This was so delicate and packed full of flavour; I ate far more than I thought I could fit, and I wish I could eat the rest of it right now. Best pasta dish I’ve had in a restaurant since I was in Italy, I think.
My mum had the whipped baccala (a salted, dried fish, for those who haven’t tried this hairy little number), which was really tasty although I don’t love baccala due to the aforementioned hairiness. For mains she had quail, which looked excellent, although I wasn’t really paying attention because I was busy making out with my pasta.
The menu changes regularly, and in a really cute touch, calls out a handful of ingredients that are super-​seasonal on the day (e.g. pomegranate, chestnut, partridge). Bottom line: go to Scopri with an open mind and if you’re unsure of what to get, ask what is best that day. It will be something that makes you want to come back.

What can I say, except that Scopri hits the spot, that craving-Italian-which-isn’t-your-average-everyday-Italian-comfort-food spot. Dishes like the pan seared squid ink and saffron rice topped with prawns, the Lamb topped with a pecorino-​parsley or the Roman style slow cooked Berkshire porkbelly with a borlotti bean ragu. And for dessert, the ‘sweet coffee cup’ — a crisp wafer shell filled with coffee zabaglione, on sweetened buffalo ricotta.
This is a special occasion restaurant for me, it’s classy and it’s special.
A visit to Scopri wouldn’t be complete without trying their signature dish — Berkshire pork sausage with grilled Scamorza cheese and minted zucchini. But that’s only if it’s in season.

I had one of my most relaxing and warm eating experiences here at Scopri.
Scopri seems to be setting the standard for most of the restaurants in the area. The service is friendly, the meal portions are large and the wine list is large and reasonably priced.
I had a mate come over and after seeing that the only thing occupying my fridge was a rotten tomato and some blue cheese (it wasn’t blue when i bought it), we decided to eat out… The only problem? It was pouring outside with rain!
The closest place i could think of was Scopri, i would see the venue constantly packed with people all having a very good time, so we ran with our hoods up to this Italian eatery.
We were seated immediately and orders were taken promptly. The wait staff are switched on when it comes to matching the meals to a wine so ask away. Meals were delicious, wine followed suit.
The atmosphere is so cheery, interior is a tad bland but i guess it attributes to the old style presence of the venue.