Spaghetti Club

Wood, Flour, Fire: Italian Cooking in Richmond

The smell of wood smoke reaches you before much else does at Spaghetti Club. Open-fire cooking has become a genuine commitment at a small number of Melbourne's Italian restaurants over the past decade, and Richmond's entry into that conversation leans into the register most associated with central and southern Italian tradition: pasta made by hand, dishes built for the table rather than the individual plate, and heat applied with some conviction. The format draws on a strand of Italian cooking that Australians have historically softened into something more accommodating. Here, the approach reads as deliberate.

The Regional Question: What Kind of Italian?

Italian cuisine is not one thing, and the distinctions matter. The nonna-style share plate format that Spaghetti Club operates within belongs to a broad domestic tradition rather than to a single Italian region, but its DNA skews closer to the central and southern Italian model than to the more refined northern one. Roman cooking prioritises texture and economy, building flavour from a short list of ingredients used with precision. Neapolitan cooking goes further into fire and fermentation. Tuscan cooking reaches for the wood grill and the bean pot. Milanese cooking is richer, more restrained in spice, oriented toward butter and saffron. The handmade pasta and open-fire techniques at Spaghetti Club suggest an affinity with the central Italian school, where pasta-making is a tactile discipline passed between generations rather than a production line process, and where the grill is a structural tool rather than a garnish.

This matters for Melbourne specifically because the city's Italian dining scene has long fragmented along exactly these lines. The red-sauce institution model, built around community migration from Calabria and Sicily, gave way over two decades to a more regionally conscious wave. Places like 400 Gradi in Brunswick East planted a flag in Neapolitan pizza orthodoxy with sufficient seriousness to earn international certification. More recently, Amaru in Armadale occupies a different tier entirely, where fine-dining technique absorbs Australian native ingredients with Italian structural logic. Spaghetti Club sits between those poles: neighbourhood-register cooking, but with craft at its centre.

Richmond's Dining Position

Richmond is a suburb that runs several food stories at once. Its Victoria Street corridor is one of Melbourne's most concentrated Vietnamese dining strips, where places like Baan Lao extend the Southeast Asian dining tradition the area built its reputation on. The suburb also carries a more general dining density that includes everything from the grill-focused format of Buckhead's Restaurant and Chop House to the Cantonese seafood houses represented by Chef Tony Seafood Restaurant, Jade Seafood Restaurant, and the roast-focused HK BBQ Master. Against that backdrop, an Italian restaurant committed to handmade pasta and fire cooking reads as a considered counterpoint rather than a neighbourhood default.

The suburb is well-connected to central Melbourne and walkable from the MCG precinct, which means the dinner trade at restaurants along its main strips can be dense on event nights.full Richmond restaurants guide maps the range.

The Share Plate Format and What It Demands

Share plates in an Italian context are not simply small plates rebranded. The tradition of antipasto, primo, and secondo served to the table rather than plated for individuals reflects a specific understanding of how a meal builds. Handmade pasta as a primo course, arriving after something from the fire, sets a particular pace. It asks more of the table than a single-plate format does: the group has to make decisions, dishes arrive in a sequence that requires some coordination, and the cooking's quality distributes itself across multiple rounds rather than concentrating in one showpiece plate.

This format works well for groups of four or more, where the range of dishes ordered can give the kitchen more to work with. For two, it can still function, though the selection narrows. The nonna-style register implies a certain generosity of portion and a preference for depth of flavour over decorative restraint, which aligns with the open-fire cooking approach: wood heat adds a layer of character that requires no further embellishment.

Across the broader Melbourne fine dining spectrum, the contrast is instructive. Attica in Melbourne and Brae in Birregurra represent the tasting menu end of the Australian table, where the chef's sequencing controls the entire experience. Spaghetti Club's share format inverts that logic deliberately: the table drives the meal, and the kitchen responds to the order rather than choreographing a fixed sequence.

Planning a Visit

What the format implies is that walk-in availability will depend on the night and the size of the group. Pasta-centred neighbourhood restaurants in Melbourne's inner suburbs tend to fill midweek as well as on weekends, particularly those operating a share format that encourages longer tables and repeat visits. Arriving early in a service window generally improves walk-in prospects at restaurants of this type.

Richmond's broader hospitality scene is covered in the Richmond bars guide, the Richmond hotels guide, and the Richmond wineries guide for those building a longer itinerary around the suburb. The Richmond experiences guide rounds out the cultural and activity options in the area.