It’s white, ethereally light, a gift from heaven itself.  An angelic creation of milk, honey and fond childhood memories. With every spoonful it’s ice-cold, shattery crisp, crumbly sweet, creamy sour … oh lord, please don’t make it stop.

By the time you get to the latte e miele, you’ll know that almost everything at Al Dente Sapori has been a godsend.

Those crunchy fried green olives, stuffed with pork mince, with a chilled negroni.  The squishy sourdough slathered in sweet fermented butter and aged balsamic. A fizzy pour of non-alch feijoa kombucha or Piedmonte ginger ale, (which tastes refreshingly like sweet red vermouth).

In fairness, chefs Andrea Vignali and Davide Bonadiman have had time to perfect their craft.

Vignali’s pasta delivery project, Al Dente, bubbled to the surface in Melbourne’s lockdowns and gained cult-like cred.

Old Grossi Florentino pal, Bonadiman, came on board to help with demand and in late 2020 the duo, along with Andrea’s partner Michelle Badek, opened posh bricks-and-mortar venue Al Dente Enoteca in Carlton.

Then in no-thrills 2022 fashion, the team turned Enoteca’s next door grocer into a slightly more casual eatery; Al Dente Sapori.

Don’t be fooled into thinking the cosy 47-seater, with its laidback exposed red brick and pantry-staple lined walls, goes too far the other way.

Sapori is more approachable than Enoteca, yet still polished and refined.

It’s the type of place where the white tablecloths are ironed, the plates warmed, the bread fresh from the oven. And then there’s Michelle, who works the floor with skill, grace and encyclopaedic knowledge of what hits the pass and what’s poured in your glass.

She also makes sensible calls on that Moreton Bay bug saffron spaghetti shareability, halving the already generously sized dish portioned in the kitchen to avoid messy ‘Lady and the Tramp’ moments. Good call, as there’s zero chance I’m sharing.

The Enoteca-famous dish stays true to its namesake: the pasta is appropriately firm, swimming in a silky crustacean bisque with sweet and salty pops of bug and roe. It’s a must.

Piedmontese classic vitello tonnato gets a modern spin, and while some may enjoy the indulgence of veal sheets bathed in a tuna, anchovy and colatura di alici (an Italian fish sauce), it’s a bit much yet I appreciate the salty cameos of fried capers and fat caperberries.

While more suited to cold nights with pinot, that dry-aged duck was expertly cooked; all juicy flesh and a fine layer of fat and crisp skin that gives our mate pork crackle a run for its money.

And then we have the brilliance of that dessert, an ode to the Italian lolly Galatine. It’s all puffy layers of buttermilk panna cotta foam, Fior di latte gelato and crumbly sweet milk rubble buzzing with bee pollen and fermented honey jellies.

If we flirted with Al Dente in lockdown and went steady with Enoteca, then Sapori is a full-blown, northern Italian love affair we can’t get enough of.

Related review Stokehouse Pasta & Bar brings breezy Italian fare to St Kilda