Ladro Greville

Oh Ladro, how you steal our hearts. Once again we've fallen for your fetching industrial-chic aesthetic (black rubber floor, white marble tabletops, funky staff in lipstick-red T-shirts), with your rustic insalata caprese and delicate fried calamari, but mostly we're head over heels for your pizzas. They're thin-crusted, kiln-baked (slow-burning sugar gum, if you must know), and topped with choice ingredients such as provolone and pork sausage on the Badabing (think Sopranos), or nicely aged and salt-cured prosciutto on a San Daniele. This is unfussed Italian cookery at its best, pleasing the cheek-kissing crowd with a roast goat and baked spuds special, or pan-fried barramundi, or pasta dishes, or a wonderfully textured and dressed farro salad with slivered almonds, goat's curd and pickled eggplant. But why pretend? There's nothing wrong with dressing up for pizza. And if there's a better salted caramel panna cotta in Melbourne, please do tell.