Daniela Frangos

The prolific restaurateur also shares the local restaurant he’s visited the most, the Italian icon he takes out-of-towners to, and his favourite sandwich in Melbourne.

Plus, a sky-high diner with the “champagne of pastas” and two of Melbourne's favourite French restaurants unveil their anticipated new wine bars.

Beit Siti, a homey casual Palestinian restaurant, will be a place for founder and cook Rahaf Al Khatib to share her mother and grandmother’s recipes in a cosy dine-in setting. She’ll also host community events like language classes, cooking workshops and Ramadan ifṭar.

The dimly lit cocktail den will serve barrel-aged cocktails, tableside Martinis and oscietra caviar in a moody but playful setting.

In the lead-up to The Age Good Food Guide on sale from November 19, we raise a glass to the return of the pub, in a big and welcome way.

Thornbury pasta shop Pastificio Sandro and its accompanying 14-seat diner Prova, which the team behind Umberto Espresso Bar opened earlier this year, have both been flipped into a casual wine bar.

Partners Nina Hadinata and Morgen Wyn-Hadinata found the new site the day they decided to close Parkside. The no-frills, takeaway-geared store brings “the best of all three venues” to the foothills.

The 192-page first issue features new fiction, non-fiction, poetry and literary criticism from writers from around the country, as well as Nigeria and Berlin.

As hats get doled out at The Age Good Food Guide awards, the Attica chef and owner remains unhappy about the whole food-review thing.