Heidelberg Has A Secret And It’s Little Black Pig And Sons

It sits on an unsuspecting suburban strip where you’d expect a pharmacy and maybe a tax agent, not a dining room with this level of intent. From the outside, there’s no theatrics. Then the door opens, and you slip through a rounded curtain that softens the world behind you. It feels a little like stepping backstage. The noise of the strip fades, your shoulders drop a fraction, and those warm solar-eclipse pendant lights guide you into a room that’s intimate without being precious. A few oyster artworks bring a wink of personality, but the space remains mature, grounded and unbothered by trends.

The five-course dinner isn’t a strict march through set dishes. Instead, each diner chooses their own path through cicchetti, antipasti, primi, secondi, contorni and dolci. It keeps things playful, but the real charm is how gently everything is paced. Nothing arrives too fast. Nothing drags. The room seems to breathe with you.

We began with cicchetti: oysters, a braised fennel and prawn tart and a little bonus from the kitchen - Olasagasti anchovy, egg on toast. Small, clean, unfussy. From the antipasti section came the wagyu tartare held together with truffle butter and a barramundi carpaccio.

Pasta followed, and this is where the restaurant’s personality really comes into focus. The veal ragù pappardelle was the kind of dish that settles you instantly, warm and generous. The squid ink spaghetti with clams and crab felt lighter, clearer, and surprisingly compatible with a gentle pinot. Extra focaccia became necessary; the sauces demanded it.

For secondi, the bistecca arrived on the bone with a proper crust, mushrooms tucked beneath and truffle butter melting slowly across the grain. It was cooked with the ease of a kitchen that has done this many times, but still cares enough to do it properly. Dessert was a neat finale: a boozy tiramisù and a brûléed lemon tart with crème fraîche, both confident and restrained.

What struck me most wasn’t the food, though it was very good. It was the way the room was held together by people. Service was warm in the way suburban institutions often are, guided and attentive without needing a script. And then there was chef-owner David Lakhi, who left the pass more than once to speak to each table. Not with fanfare, not as a performance, but with genuine curiosity and ease. That level of engagement is rare in the city; out here, it feels entirely natural.

This same sense of connection forms the backbone of the restaurant’s upcoming wine dinner series, running from February through May 2026. These evenings pair Lakhi’s produce-driven cooking with winemakers and producers who join the room for one-night-only conversations over the table. One example is the Pasqua Wine Dinner on Thursday 26 February with Cecilia Pasqua, where dishes like prawn and cauliflower tartlets with prosecco, scallops with Yarra Valley shiraz caviar paired with Garganega, chocolate agnolotti with duck, and Aylesbury duck with summer truffles and raspberries lead into a pistachio and macadamia bombe alaska. 

Further evenings follow with Sicilian wines, a Yumbah Aquaculture and Brackenwood collaboration, and Levantine Hill with winemaker Peter Shone. It’s a series shaped less by spectacle and more by conversation, complete with a playful tasting game and the option to take bottles home at better-than-retail prices. 

Little Black Pig & Sons doesn’t chase hype, trends or the algorithm. It does something far rarer in Melbourne: it cooks well, looks after people and feels genuinely personal. In a city sprinting toward the next novelty, it’s refreshing to walk through a curtain and find a restaurant that knows exactly who it is.