This 40-year-old restaurant is probably our critic’s favourite in all of Melbourne

Is there anything more Melbourne, more comforting, more screaming of “restaurant as home” than rocking up to Marios on a Thursday night, idling by the door, catching the eye of one of the longtime battle-proud waiters, and negotiating for a table? “How many? Inside or outside?” If they know you, the conversation becomes more intimate, spoken in shorthand: we both know the deal. Having status as a regular here is one of the keys to the city.

The restaurant as a third space – a home away from home, a hub of community, a public living room – is a fairly new concept. For men in Australia, the pub has historically been a reliable third space (it has only been since the 1970s that women were consistently allowed to partake), but the restaurant was a different beast: fancier, more rarefied, not necessarily for everyone.

In Melbourne, Mario Maccarone and Mario De Pasquale can be thanked for this gift that we all now take for granted. In 1986, 40 years ago today, they opened their hybrid cafe/restaurant on what was then a very grungy strip of Brunswick Street. Their blending of casualness with professionalism – the waiters in waistcoats, white tablecloths at breakfast, a cocktail list alongside an espresso machine – was revolutionary. I have long said that I give Marios, along with the Black Cat just up the street, credit for making Fitzroy what it is today.

It also had a hand in making me what I am today. I cannot remember a life in which restaurants existed in my consciousness without Marios as an archetype.

It is built for whatever you want it to be as long as you expect it to be Marios and nothing else. 

Restaurant critics dread the question “what is your favourite restaurant?” almost as much as the frequency with which it gets asked, and my answer is usually an annoying quibbling: it depends on the day, the mood, the season, my appetite. But if I’m honest, the answer is probably Marios. It is certainly where I eat most frequently, where I feel most at home, where I default to when I’m not working and not cooking and just want to be out in the city with my wider Melbourne brethren.

How much of that fondness and frequency has to do with the food? Only a little. That’s the truth of a life spent in restaurants – sometimes the food isn’t the point, or it’s only part of the point. I adore the room, the art and posters on the walls, the counter along the shopfront window facing out onto the street, the neon sign and chalkboard specials boards. It is a perfect size: small enough to feel convivial but not so small as to be cramped.

I love that you can get a coffee here at any time of day, that breakfast can be had at 4pm, that cocktails can be had at 10am, that it is built for whatever you want it to be as long as you expect it to be Marios and nothing else.

The staff at Marios exemplify a type of service that is so specific to our city, I’m not sure most of us even realise its distinction. Again, I think this restaurant probably helped to invent the genre. Professional but relaxed, no nonsense but witty, efficient but friendly – as long as you follow the rules, many of which are unspoken. (Don’t get in the way. Ask for the bill at your table; don’t hover at the bar. Be good to us and we will reward you in kind.)

The trick at Marios is to pick the dishes they do well and then stick to them. The occasional special is worth your attention, but again, you should know the kitchen’s strengths and order accordingly.

Things with pan sauces that include lemon and wine are often a safe bet. Almost all pasta dishes are reasonably good, in the old-school Melbourne way, which is to say: this is not Italy, don’t come here expecting it to be. I think Marios makes the best chicken livers in town, and that’s a hill I will die on. Marsala, bacon, spinach, livers cooked exactly right – just to pink, not a second more.

That’s my order: livers to start, then a bowl of all’amatriciana, the tomato and bacon singed to deepen the flavour, the edge of chilli rounding it out. I could make this pasta at home if I wanted and do it just as well, but I don’t want to – that’s the point.

In planning to write this review, I attempted to push past my favourites and try other things. I had a minestrone soup that was flat and boring, and a Caprese salad that was undersalted and bland. My mistake. Stick to the hits.

My hits are not everyone’s. My partner prefers the lasagne, generous and meaty. My sibling-in-law is a fan of the chicken saltimbocca. We all crave the chicken livers, though.

Sometimes a restaurant is more than the sum of its parts, and the food plus service plus ambience equation simply isn’t enough to express its worth. Marios is such a place. It embodies the soul of the north-side, of Melbourne Italian: its origins and its present and, God willing, its future, too.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.