Chef Scott Pickett to open Pastore restaurant at Hotel Chadstone

Retail giants aren't taking a sluggish market lying down. In recent years we've seen the explosion of the high-class food court (or "dining precincts"), and now here comes Hotel Chadstone, a $130 million, 12-storey, 250-room hotel with a wellness centre, rooftop conservatory bar (Altus), and ground-level restaurant from chef-restaurateur Scott Pickett.

Pastore, like a hybrid of Pickett's Matilda and Lupo, will offer fire-fuelled Australian-Italian, cooked by Thirty Eight Chairs chef Mirco Speri.

Opening on Friday, November 1, the restaurant and bar, each seating 50, reflect the hotel's colours of dusty pink, brass details, stone, glass and timber.

As with Pickett's other restaurants, Australian ingredients penetrate most dishes. So duck prosciutto will be tarted up with Davidson plum and pine-y succulent Geraldton wax; the house negroni is made with Pickett's brand of gin and local spirits.

The larger dishes range from house-made spaghetti ubriachi (aka drunken spaghetti, cooked in wine) with calamari and bottarga, to giant bistecca fiorentina – rib-eyes – cooked on the wood-fired grill.

As a hotel restaurant guests will have access to parts of Pastore as room service, and breakfast is offered daily.

Pastore opens November 1 for breakfast daily 6.30am-10.30am then Mon-Sat noon-9pm at Hotel Chadstone,1341 Dandenong Road, Chadstone, 03 9108 3333, pastorerestaurant.com.au.