Grossi Florentino is a love letter to the decades in which fine dining was king

For God's sake, people, put on a jacket. Leave your tracksuit at home. This is Grossi Florentino, not Macca's! Why even come here, why spend such an absurd amount of money, just to show up in jeans?

No, I'm not one of those tiresome fuddy-duddies who whines about the death of sartorial decorum at the dinner table. Most restaurants these days invite a level of casualness that suits my nap-dress budget and lifestyle, and for that I am grateful. It is because of this omnipresent casualness that a night at somewhere like Grossi Florentino calls for a crisp shirt, a silk dress, that one pair of shoes you really shouldn't have bought, but you did. If not now, then when?

And so my dormant fuddy-duddy had her moment when dining amid the over-the-top grandiosity of the almost-a-century-old Florentino on the top floor of the Grossi compound. While many patrons rose to the occasion, quite a few (most of them men) sullied the historic beauty of the room – the ornate light fixtures, the high ceilings, the walls bedecked in Italianate murals – with their athleisure wear. Harrumph.

There's no doubt that this is where Guy Grossi is currently executing his finest cooking, and the fact that he's doing it in a setting where you are provided with a little stool for your purse can be seen as delightful or ridiculous, depending on your point of view.

But there's no doubt that this restaurant is a love letter to the decades in which this kind of dining was king – and an extremely poetic one at that.

The menu is $175 or $210 per person, depending on your preference for either a three-course meal, in which each course is chosen from a number of options, or the six-course Gran Tour menu, which is presented as a degustation. The latter is likely the better value – especially if you plan on having dessert, which is a $30 supplement on the three-course option – but neither will leave you even slightly wanting, except where your bank balance is concerned.

There are truffles everywhere on Victorian menus at the moment, but nowhere else have I seen them paired with fresh sardines; it's a combination that's both unorthodox and inspired. 

How many spaghettini dishes are there in this town, often topped with spanner crab? But how many of them are house-made, cooked to al dente perfection, the sauce clinging in a way that can only be achieved through a kind of exactitude that is, frankly, a dying art?

The differences in the cooking here could be seen as small, insignificant even: the way a turnip is perfectly turned, the knife work exact; the way a meat jus is sticky and dense and rich because not one single short cut was taken; the way the brodo, poured over the veal and mortadella tortellini, is so concentrated with roasted-bone flavour it almost tastes like caramel. 

Everyone serves house-made sourdough with local butter now. What difference does using a 10-year-old mother (starter) make? It's springier, more sour, more moist … better. 

Some care about these differences, many don't. And plenty of people would concede that the food is just better without giving a hoot about why.

Like many high-end restaurants – particularly Italian ones, particularly in Melbourne – Florentino must grapple with the fact that casual dining has improved exponentially over the last decade. It's possible to get a meal that's maybe 30 per cent less special at any number of restaurants for one-third of the price. If you just want something good to eat, if all the pomp and frippery is meaningless (I know some people for whom these things are downright objectionable), then there really is no reason to visit this baroque room with its murals and purse stools.

Personally, I can't help but be swayed by the romance of the place, the sense that Grossi is honouring the history of Melbourne dining by preserving this space and using it to deliver a menu befitting of its grandeur. There's so much to love about newness, about trendy, modern cooking. But once or twice a year, why not put on your best suit and pay homage to the tried and true, to technique, to fine dining in its sincerest form? 

If you adore a rolling cheese cart, if a perfectly al dente pasta is important to you, if you miss the gentle formality of expertly trained staff, if you simply yearn for a good reason to break out that silk dress, then there are still very few places in this city better suited to indulging those desires than Grossi Florentino.

Vibe: Grand, romantic, luxe

Go-to dish: Tortellini in brodo (part of the $175 prix fixe menu)

Drinks: Huge, impressive wine list, classic cocktails and one of the city's best selections of non-alcoholic cocktails and wines

Cost: Dinner for two, excluding drinks, $350-$420

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine