The Age Review

Let's face it, we men are simple things. Hardly intricate machinery, more like a trusty screwdriver. Easy to operate and delivering predictable results. Sometimes we'll screw things up, sometimes we won't - it just depends on how you grasp and twist us.

Not that this is bad. After all, the simple things are the most highly valued - a sunset, the laughter of children, a two-carat princess-cut solitaire diamond of at least VVS1 clarity in a plain platinum setting.

To that list, ad good gnocchi. Freshly made. A supremely basic combination of potato, egg and flour dropped into boiling water, removed as it floats to the surface and then served immediately. It's springy when you bite into it, yet light.

The trouble is that gnocchi too often lives up to its name, which derives from a word for "lumps". Not so at Zappa, a small cafe next to the town hall in South Melbourne. For the past four years, Rocco Sergi has been supplying his son Michael's cafe with the gnocchi for Thursday lunch.

Rocco has the gnocchi knack. These little cylinders go quite some way towards being perfect - served sometimes in a robust sausage sauce, sometimes with meatballs but always with a vegetarian alternative.

The secret, says Rocco, is in the timing. When you remove the potatoes from the water. When you add the flour. If those potatoes are too wet, they'll absorb too much flour, making them heavy.

It isn't just Thursday's gnocchi that are worth visiting for. On Tuesday, Michael's got his Mum slaving to produce her meat lasagne, as well as her spinach and ricotta cannelloni. Through the week, you'll also find the indomitable Angela and Maria cooking. Like Madonna and Prince, they go by one name each - which is understandable if you go on a Wednesday for one of their hearty meat dishes, such as chicken cacciatore or osso buco. Good Catholics will appreciate that Friday is calamari day and on Mondays there is a sort of multicultural Aussie antipasto.

Zappa also serves the usual bready things such as pide sandwiches and pre-made baguettes and there's a selection of items "from the oven", such as a housemade chicken puff pastry calzone, spanakopita and sausage rolls with mozzarella.

It's all good, honest cafe food.

The front of this narrow shopfront is dominated by a high counter where there are salads, - roasted vegetables, a Caesar with bacon and boiled egg, a fresh cut of fruit salad - and also a basket of pastries from French Fantasies. There's reasonable coffee and good blood orange juice or fresh, squeezed ones such as ginger, beetroot and orange.

Given that the cafe is named after the US muso who gave us The Mothers of Invention, it's perhaps a surprise not to find dishes on the menus inspired by his songs. There's no "gumbo variations", "canard du jour" or pancake breakfasts made by St Alphonzo. Admittedly, a "Burnt Weeny Sandwich" might not sell.

Matt Preston