The Grollo family have long been regulars at Guy Grossi’s flagship restaurant Florentino’s.

Lorenz Grollo and his father Rino had been planning to lure Melbourne’s top chefs to the Rialto precinct as part of its regeneration. Guy Grossi was high on their list.

Lorenz Grollo approached Guy Grossi with an idea to create an eatery on the ground floor of the InterContinental hotel.

As a result of their long association, they decided they should co-own the restaurant. 

Guy and Lorenz share a Venetian heritage so it was only natural that the restaurant have a Venetian theme.

Guy travelled to Venice for inspiration and decided to create an informal osteria-style restaurant.

The architects, Mills Gorman, embraced the theme and delivered a design that captured Guy's ideas.

The concept design phase took 6 months. 

The Rialto’s‘s heritage envelope required  Equiset Living to devise a hybrid D&C process to deliver the fit-out with key sub-contractors. The team took on on design roles to deliver Mills Gorman's detailed design which captures the spirit of Venice

The attention to detail is evident in the beautiful mosaic patterns in the entry, the Venetian pattern work in the metal screens and the liquid curved bar in front of the open plan kitchen.

The project was delivered within time and under budget with high quality fixtures and design throughout.

Construction of the new restaurant was completed on October 22^nd after 3.5 months of works.

The $2.2m restaurant seats 200 customers and opened to the public in November 2010.