Geppetto Trattoria in East Melbourne is within kicking distance of the MCG.

Not much has changed at this BYO-friendly trattoria, located within kicking distance of the ’G. May it always be so.

Porchetta with peppers, onion and potatoes.

Trippa alla paesana (braised tripe with borlotti beans, tomato and sage, pictured front) and focaccia with olive tapenade.

Geppetto Trattoria's simple, carpeted dining room.

Capretto alla pignata (braised goat with grilled polenta).

Geppetto Trattoria

Italian

They don’t build them like Geppetto anymore. In 1981, Nino Cea opened a restaurant near the MCG to share the food he’d grown up with in Puglia, in southern Italy. Forty-five years later, aged 74, he’s still welcoming people through the same timber door for home and hospitality.

Melbourne dining has shifted, remixed and circled back a hundred times during these decades, but not much has changed at Geppetto. May it always be so.

There’s the carpeted dining room with simple padded chairs and paper-over-linen tables. There are smartly dressed waiters who spill with gladness to have you with them for a meal.

Who needs a temperature gauge when everything is cooked by feel, look, experience?

Nothing is new but everything is clean, cared for and there for a reason, from the Pinocchio figurine sitting cheekily on the bar to the crumbed veal medallions – which the Cea family once removed from the menu but there were such ructions among regulars that they were swiftly reinstated. “I reprinted the menus the next day,” says Nino’s son Adriano, a consistent presence in the restaurant that has been a constant in his life.

It’s still Nino’s place. Every morning, he wheels his trolley to the market in Coburg, or maybe Preston if the wind blows that way, chatting to vendors about goat, duck, perhaps rabbit, then taking his spoils to East Melbourne to turn into simple, perfect dishes.

Maybe he got up before dawn to throw in a line at one of the piers between Port Melbourne and Mornington, reeling in garfish that might find their way to the specials board.

Then it’s the onions, chopped small and sweating slowly until they melt into whichever sofrito is cooking right now, maybe one with sage, cloves and garlic that’s a base for tripe and borlotti beans, the offal and pulse cooked with fine touch to the cusp of collapse.

Or it’s softened carrot, celery and leek to welcome ox cheek, braised with sangiovese until it’s a rich ragu, perfect for entangling with house-made pappardelle.

There’ll be goat shoulder, stewed with white wine, passata, a little rosemary, served with grilled polenta that brings crunch to the gentle joy of the reduction.

Porchetta with peppers, onion and potatoes.

And if it’s crunch you like, consider the porchetta, rolled with thyme and sage, braised in stock, then blistered in an oven without a thermostat. Who needs a temperature gauge when everything is feel, look, experience?

Maybe you’ll share this dining room with a group of accountants who have been coming monthly for 25 years, or a singleton from a nearby apartment twirling spaghetti, or blokes doing that most Melbourne pre-theatre: pasta before heading to the footy. All are welcome, so long as they can fit you in.

The Cea family still talks about that night in 1988 when they had to turn Mick Jagger away from a packed dining room; then in 1998, Snoop Dogg made the mistake of rocking up without a reservation, too.

“Someone called Doggy Dog?” Nino shrugged to his sons. Whether you come for chicken livers every Friday or you’ve hopped off the tram in hope, the glory of Geppetto is that everyone’s a VIP.

The low-down

Atmosphere: Relentless welcome, generosity and tradition

Go-to dishes: Porchetta ($49); trippa alla paesana ($25); gnocchi alla bolognese ($27/$44); capretto alla pignata ($51)

Drinks: Tight, smart, good value drinking that caters to conservative tipplers, connoisseurs and hopeful explorers across local and Italian wines. There’s always an interesting pour on the specials board. BYO is $20 corkage per bottle.

Cost: About $150 for two, excluding drinks

Dani Valent

This 45-year-old Italian spot is for the most Melbourne pre-theatre: pasta before the footy