Matti Fallon’s Mornington restaurant Colt Dining had been open for less than a month when it was completely destroyed by an electrical fire last October.

The restaurant, with its 1970s fit-out and 5000-strong vinyl record collection – also destroyed in the fire – marked a homecoming for the chef, who had moved back to the peninsula with his young family after years in spent cooking Melbourne and, more recently, Byron Bay.

“The next day, after the fire, we got absolutely shit-faced, as you can imagine,” Fallon tells Broadsheet. “The whole team rallied around and were like, ‘Let's just go for it – look for a space and we’ll do something straightaway.’
“After we made the decision and the hangover kicked in, I was like, ‘Shit, can I do it?’ Now we’ve been too busy to worry about whether we should or shouldn’t – we just went straight for it.”

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Now, Fallon and the Colt Dining team are getting ready to open Mr Vincenzo’s, a neighbourhood restaurant on the esplanade, overlooking Mornington Park and the bay.

Named for Fallon’s business partner Paul Godard’s late grandfather, the new venue will open in three stages. The restaurant is set to begin service in two weeks’ time, with a production kitchen and a fine diner to follow.

Fallon and head chef Michael Kharsas, who was sous-chef at Colt, have designed what Fallon describes as a “playful Italian” menu. When Mr Vincenzo’s opens, diners can expect hibachi-grilled mortadella skewers, thick hand-rolled pici noodles with local mushrooms, and amped up arancini. They’re also planning to revamp the retro restaurant classic “trio of dips”, and will have “large-format pasta” like ravioli Dauphiné (two whole pasta sheets filled and rolled into a slab of ravioli that Fallon says is “ridiculous to eat” – in a good way).

The team was able to rise from the ashes in large part thanks to the local community. The landlord offered Fallon 12 months rent-free, while the paint job was taken care of by Taubmans Paint, and Frankston Bunnings provided all materials at cost plus 10 per cent. Fallon says people have turned up offering records, labour and other forms of support.

“There were lots of points where I was just like, ‘Shit, how are we actually going to string this together?’ ... And then people would just sort of shine through and turn up at the right time.”

As for Colt, the chef says he has plans to reopen, but with the building’s first floor entirely demolished, it’s likely to be another 18 months before anything happens there. For now, he’s got the Colt Dining sign – the only thing that survived the fire – mounted on the wall at Mr Vincenzo’s.

Mr Vincenzo’s is due to open at 3/784 Esplanade Mornington in May.

@mr_vincenzos