STORY BY LARISSA DUBECKI, PHOTOS BY CHRIS TURNER

Spaghetti Bar is a lesson in how Italian food should be done. A love letter from Kyneton to Italy, it celebrates that country’s great gift to the food world as it deserves: simply, with an insouciant sense of style.

Opened by Daniel Whelan on historic Piper Street two years ago, it’s a portal to Rome, or Puglia, or the Veneto, depending on which way the region-hopping menu swings. The fresh ribbons of pappardelle with duck ragu will whisk you straight to Tuscany; the saffron risotto to Milan.

Behind the impeccable Italianisms, the lurking irony is that Whelan was trained in classical French technique. “I just love making pasta,” says the Mornington Peninsula native who moved to central Victoria in 2008 to head the kitchen at the Redesdale Hotel. He followed that with a multi-year stint working with local legend Annie Smithers at her eponymous Kyneton bistro (she can now be found at Trentham’s Du Fermier) before hatching the plan 10 years ago for what was to become Spaghetti Bar. “I’ve always loved small bistros, not big fancy dining rooms,” says Whelan. “When I thought about my small little country restaurant it was based on places I loved to eat at when I lived in Melbourne: the Florentino Cellar Bar after work, and Pellegrini’s before the footy.”

Spaghetti Bar’s menu observes a tight formula of three entrees, five mains and four desserts but everything within those parameters works hard. Punchy starters include crostini laden with Sicily’s hero creation peperonata, countered by the lactic tang of stracciatella and vibing on sunshine with fresh basil, or acid-forward white anchovies mollified by aioli and dill. Graduating to carbs might mean agnolotti filled with an autumnal mix of chestnut and mushroom or spaghetti with mussels in tomato sugo along with the subtle curveball of tarragon.

The menu changes every week but the pasta-averse can always rely on the cotoletta – sometimes pork, sometimes veal – to get through to desserts that sing a song in the key of tira misu, panna cotta (with the modish addition of salted caramel) and chocolate, strawberry and almond semi freddo.

It probably goes without saying that central Victorian produce, including some from obliging neighbours, is front and centre. Whelan also cures his own guanciale (for the carbonara, of course) and bresaola.
The interesting little wine list – mostly local, with Italian varieties – follows suit. And at around $60 for three courses, it’s also keen value: “It’s the right price point for me,” says Whelan, “and the right kind of food.”

The savvy design by Dean Bamford references a coolly luscious Italian mid-century aesthetic with a chequered floor, terrazzo tables and green wainscoted walls that segue into a soft pink timber-lined ceiling. It provides the immersive counterpoint to Sophia Loren’s famous (and sadly apocryphal) declaration, “Everything you see I owe to spaghetti”. If the senora swung my Spaghetti Bar she’d surely approve.

Spaghetti Bar

58 Piper Street, Kyneton

03 5422 6494

spaghettibar.com.au

Open for dinner Thursday to Sunday and lunch on Sunday.