400 Gradi, Melbourne, Australia

After our beers at Temple Brewing we made the short walk across Lygon Street to an Italian resturant called 400 Gradi. It was probably just 100 metres away.

As I would find out later 400 Gradi is a chain of half a dozen or so restaurants – we visited the Brunswick one.

400 Gradi, Melbourne, Australia

On a summer’s Thursday evening the restaurant was doing a roaring trade but luckily we’d reserved a table.

The space is large and well appointed though some of the tables are packed in a bit so your neighbours can feel a little close.

Traditional Italian food is the menu here and we all chose a pizza of some sort. My choice was the Calzone Al Forno a folded pizza with San Marzano tomato, fior di latte, mild salami, ricotta, prosciutto cotto (Ham) & basil.

The pizzas came out suprisingly quickly given how busy they were, but when we tucked in we were all pleasantly surprised by how good the pizzas were.

I would say that the calzone was probably one of the best I’ve ever had. Some calzones try to pack in as much as possible, but this calzone was not overly heavy and had a superb taste and it was cooked just right. I’d definitely have this dish again.

I’m a sucker for a Tiramisu at Italian resturants so it was only logical that I’d order one, and it turned out to be quite good.

One thing that surprised me was the price… not for how expensive it was, but for the value for money. There were four of us, we each had a pizza, we all had dessert, and we also had a reasonable bottle of wine. When the bill came out it was $200, or $50 a head. I think, for the quality of the food, this was very good value for money.