It is, quite simply, the city’s most extraordinary pasta dish.

Called Vincisgrassi, it’s a lasagne of feather-light pasta sheets and beef ragu amped with tiny dice of offal, teamed with the lightest touch of béchamel. Finished with a crunchy parmesan crust, it’s a plate that’s last-meal stuff.

Leo Gelsomino has been perfecting this dish at various venues around town for the best part of a decade, but now here with his name rightfully above the door, it’s at its best.

Lello is all about the pasta, with Gelsomino kneading, rolling, cutting, twisting and twirling for a half-dozen dishes you’ll unlikely find elsewhere. There are Sardinian dumplings known as culurgiones stuffed with potato and mint, cacio e pepe – the Roman dish of pecornio and pepper – made with a burnt-flour macheroni, and supple ribbons of tagliolini that might come as a twirl around Gippsland rabbit served on the bone.

Tiny pillows of the lightest gnocchi served with a saffron-tinged lamb ragu disappear in a dream. Pizzas, on-theme entrees such as ricotta-filled zucchini flowers and grilled calamari, and a few changing mains round out a menu joined by a tight wine list that holds local interest and Italian traditions in equal esteem.

Add a newly renovated dining room that’s quietly handsome, service that comes with owner-operator care and that lasagna, and Lello is the essential destination for every Italiophile.

Must eat dish: Vincisgrassi lasagne