Everybody's local

Mama Baba's refectory-style dining room is cleverly carved up into several spaces, including this bright cocktail bar.

There's the wine journey, which is made more fun by the discovery of some 75ml pours, the wine equivalent of a snack. There's the music journey, a sometimes odd, sometimes exhilarating ride as the vinyl-spinning DJ swings from the Steve Miller Band to Shuggie Otis, Andras Fox and everything in between. Loudly. There's the food journey; we'll get to that.

And then there's the journey you'll take to get here. Call it a backhanded compliment if you like, but Mama Baba is a fine example of a very good neighbourhood restaurant and as such, you probably don't need to drive from the other side of Melbourne to dine here. It's a place with the local market squarely in its sights.

The seventh, and most recent, business from Melbourne's Made Establishment group, Mama Baba has taken something of a right turn in its own journey since opening in fast-growing South Yarra in January. While the concept remains the same - a Greek-Italian pasta joint reflecting the Calombaris family's dual nationality - the menu has changed, and the food is the better for it. It's simpler, less uptight, more of a piece with the rest of the offering. Did we really need a cheffy makeover of spaghetti carbonara in a place pitching itself as family-friendly? No, we didn't.

The refectory-style dining room is cleverly carved up into several spaces. There's a big, bright bar along one side, a naked kitchen on the other, and lots of different tables - long, high, small, banquette, round - for different folks in between. Indeed, judging by the speed at which its 150 seats fill up on a cold weeknight, it's making a good fist of being most things to most people; it even has baby food on the menu.

Good house-made bread (focaccia) and long strips of lavoche land pretty soon after we do. With two sittings (minimum) nightly, the cheery staff don't muck around. You're here for a fun time, not a long time.

From the snacks list, the bolognese arancini are as essential as bread. At $7 for four, they're almost as cheap, boasting all the flavour of good bol meat, carrot, fresh tomato tang - in a crunchy shell. Equally happy are the crab and sweetcorn croquettes, all creamy and fluffy inside.

Kritharaki are the Greek equivalent of the Italian orzo. Here, the little pasta shapes are cooked with quality chicken stock and served with walnut-sized balls of minced braised chicken. You add lots of the Greek equivalent of parmesan to complete a warm and cuddly sort of dish, best shared lest it become a tad monotonous.

Chef Dominic Pipicelli does the smarter stuff well, too. Over three visits, the best dish we've had is a ravioli with truffle pecorino, duck ragu and asparagus; the pasta perfect, the truffle flavour at exactly the right pitch and tasting (mercifully) like the real thing. I would have liked one more raviolo: three big'uns still looks a bit light on for $29.

Also good is a main of barramundi with sweetcorn puree, bits of spanner crab and teeny chanterelle mushrooms.

The merest suggestion of grit in the fungi only made me fantasise about the chefs foraging for them at dawn, so no biggie. A chopped salad of seasonal leaves (iceberg one night, rocket the next) shows off excellent produce and well-made dressings. From the sweets section, The Italian Mess is a big, voluptuous Sophia Loren of a dessert, loaded with meringue, hazelnuts, blobs of cranberry jelly and cream. It's better than the plum tart, with too-thick pastry marring a nicely plummy tang.

Mama Baba is a confident, boisterous, mostly good-value restaurant with enough urban style to make it a hit in the inner suburbs. And, being a George Calombaris restaurant, it's probably pulling in diners from the outer suburbs, too.

MAMA BABA, 21 Daly Street, South Yarra, Victoria, (03) 9207 7421
Hours: lunch Fri and Sun, dinner daily (Fri and Sun from 5pm)
Typical prices: entrees $14; pasta $27; mains $35; desserts $12.50
Summary: After a shaky start, now it's South Yarra's best restaurant
Like this? Try: Popolo, Sydney; Italian & Sons, Canberra

Source: The Australian, 8 September 2012