Little Italy is the stretch of Lygon Street between Queensberry Street in the south and Elgin Street in the north, the historic Italian quarter of Melbourne. The post-war wave of southern Italian migration settled here in the late 1940s and 1950s and made Lygon Street the country's first proper European eating strip. Pellegrini's claim to have served the first espresso in Australia is contested; the Borsari bicycle shop, the long-gone Genevieve coffee lounge, and the migration of writers and theatre makers who followed all happened on or around this short stretch of road.
The strip today is part heritage and part working restaurant row — some of the Italian restaurants are genuinely good, some are tourist traps trading on the strip's reputation. The further south you walk from Borsari's Corner, the better the average gets.