Hospitality legends open an understated Italian restaurant perfecting classics on a West Perth corner.
Soaring arched windows. Genteel, old-school service. House-made pasta. This is a café in the traditional sense; a small restaurant where white tablecloths and natural light elevate the venue’s conservative tones – charcoal grey, chocolate brown, leather black – while mature, accommodating hospitality stands out. A window table is offered without hesitation; familial stories are generously shared; a lengthy specials list is recited by heart. There’s even the rarest of commodities in modern dining – complimentary bread. The owner’s name gives clues. Waistcoated, Christian Tinelli, son of industry veteran Umberto Tinelli, is at the helm; their collective backstory includes Campo de Fiori, JoJo’s, Acqua Viva on the Swan and the Louve city café. A four-decades-old menu mainstay has been carried to their latest opening: warm Russian oysters. It seems quirky for an Italian dining room, but the thermidor-like sauce infused with vodka and red caviar easily justifies its place. Chilli is used for flavour, rather than spice: it tops a toasty portobello, face down, expertly seasoned and sliced like a steak; it stains olive oil pooling beneath spaghetti woven with prawns, mussels and fish. None though, on the traditional beef scaloppine. Instead, a velvety cream sauce stacked with mushroom slivers is clean comfort defined. Much like the experience.
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