Lagotto restaurant noted for Moreton Bay bug pasta

Updated October 12, 2026,first published November 18, 2024

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

You've used all of your gift articles. 3 more will become available on the 1st of every month.

Is this Melbourne’s best focaccia? Tall, dimpled, sproingy-fresh, the tanned temptress beckons from the bar top at the entrance of a mood-lit marble and maroon room. Straddling Carlton North and Fitzroy North, Lagotto attracts a well-dressed young professional crowd: groups of suits, dates and mates.

Waitstaff will pour you a splash of anything you’re less familiar with and affirm each of your choices with “gorgeous”. And so they are. A slab of lush duck lasagne, its cross section crisped on the grill, luxuriates in intensely cheesy parmesan foam and breaks novel, herbal ground with the canny use of saltbush.

Loaded with sweet bug meat, Lagotto’s ace-in-the-hole Moreton Bay bug pasta is a deep-sea delight, while a chunky beef tartare plumbs similar depths with tonnato sauce. Woof: this is a handsome Italian with pedigree, just like its namesake dog breed.

Must-order: Moreton Bay bug pasta.

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

Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.

Op-shop car park food truck serving some of the best Turkish snacks in town.

Pub spirit, restaurant polish.

Where dishes wander from Chengdu to Bangkok in service of funk and flavour.