The team behind Mister Bianco open a cheeky side-car bar serving bite-sized snacks and nostalgic Italian drinks. Strap yourself in for a glamorous time travel back to the 1950s where retro Italian films play, elegant banquettes line a dimly-lit interior and an award-winning bartender mixes classic cocktails with a twist.

Where Mister Bianco is the friendly guy from Sicily, bar Bianchetto is his wild little sister next door. And it’s by design. While Melbourne is awash with excellent watering holes, Vargetto says there’s nothing like his new bar Bianchetto, in Melbourne’s eastern suburb of Kew.

“To get to the bar, you need to come through a set of gold curtains. It might take a few seconds for your eyes to adjust and then what you’re seeing is something that captures that period look of the 1950s and ‘60s. Bianchetto is a one-of-a-kind venue and unique to Kew and the surrounding suburbs of Richmond, Ivanhoe or Armadale. The locals are really loving it,” says Vargetto.

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Vargetto cites a scene from The Talented Mr Ripley which he and wife Daniela used to draw on for the design of the new bar, housed in a former bank building.

“There’s a moment in the film where Matt Damon and Jude Law visit a dark, smoky bar in Positano. I remember just loving that scene and it has stuck in my head ever since,” says Vargetto, whose parents migrated from Sicily in the 1950s.

“I also drew inspiration from a trip to Italy to visit All’Antica Vinaio, a small wine bar with a sandwich counter in Verona. It’s all wood panelling, leather seats and dim lighting and I wanted Bianchetto to have that same old-school Italian vibe. We also project 1960s’ Italian films onto the walls to get people in the mood,” he says.

If the cocktail list for the 38-seater bar had a soundtrack it would be from the movie It Started in Naples featuring Sophia Loren. 

“It really gets me when Sophia Loren sings the song Tu Vuo Fa L’Americano and says ‘whiskey-soda’ in an English accent. I said to our bartender Orlando Marzo [ex- Lûmé], ‘Let’s run with that’. One of our signature drinks is a whisky and soda with a splash of lemon juice and Strega, the liqueur that gets its colour from saffron. That drink sums up everything I want the bar to be about: a contemporary riff on a classic,” he says.

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“The song Tu Vuo Fa L’Americano is also sung by Matt Damon and Jude Law in The Talented Mr Ripley, so there’s that nice little tie-in,” says Vargetto, who trained in Italy under Gualtiero Marchesi, considered the founder of new Italian cuisine, before working under Philippe Mouchel at Langton’s in Melbourne.

In addition to the Americano trolley that is wheeled around the space so the cocktail can be prepared tableside, there is track lighting behind the bar that swivels to spotlight the bartenders mixing your drink.

At Bianchetto, named after a white grape variety, award-winning bartender Marzo and his team will mix up drinks they think you might like as well as contemporary cocktails such as the SUD-Americano, Bergamot Negroni, Sicilian Sours and Olive Martini.

“Orlando is a world-champion bartender whom we are very proud to be working together to curate the drinks list,” says Vargetto.

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The bar is also proving popular for pre-dinner drinks and snacks such as ‘nduja filled olives Ascolana (Joe’s favourite), oysters with melon granita and potato rosti with smoked squacquerone (cow’s milk cheese) and caviar. 

There are also bespoke boozy jellies flavoured with limoncello, negroni, apple and chartreuse and cherry amaro. The classy cocktail bar also serves a house baked scaccia (flatbread) stuffed with mortadella and spiedino sausage which Vargetto says is “getting a lot of attention”. 

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