Cerone;s (Malvern)

Cerone’s, the eponymous café/bistro at 111 Glenferrie Rd, around the corner from Wattletree Rd, has a menu offering a good range of Italian style dishes as well as breakfast until noon, lunch specials for $15, a main and a glass of house wine, and a series of salads gourmet salads ($9.50 – $16.50) including Tandoori, Caesar, Greek, Thai and Garden salad until 5.00 pm.
While examining the menu outside the front door a young waiter came out to invite us to come in and a moment later Tony Cerone himself, something of a character, came out and enthusiastically offered us four things – great food, great atmosphere, great service and great prices. An offer too good to refuse.
The long room becomes darker as you progress toward the back. It looks like a tired café. This becomes even more obvious as you approach the toilets which are also used for storing some odds and ends. On a more salubrious subject the cutlery is solid good quality, the crockery heavy and serviceable We started with the giant ravioli filled with crab and prawn in a sauce with field mushrooms, according to the menu, which looked more like champignons. Five good size ravioli tasted very home made with a good flavour from the crab but could have had more sauceand the scattering of rocket did nothing for the dish. The scallopini on a bed of Rosemary potatoes had been beaten very thin and were a bit past ‘milk fed’ but, they were tender.Served on a cold plate they were in an excellent creamy sauce making it a very good, although cool, meal. We opted for a glass of cab/sav, $9, because the Pepper Jack had been open since the day before. The glass of wine was brought to the table already poured so we really have no idea what it was.
Other offerings include a range of pasta dishe $15.50- $19.50) s, risottos’ ($17.50-$19.50) and parmigianas’. Mains max out at $21.50. There is also a kids menu Mr. Cerone delivered to some extent on the food but the atmosphere, not improved by a background of casual music, the service and the price were very ordinary.
Entertainment book owners will enjoy a discount if they bring the appropriate coupon. All in all not a bad place for a casual domestic style bistro meal.
Score: 13.25/20