Polished, quietly confident Italian cooking, elite drinks plus switched-on service denote this Swanbourne wine bar as more than just a place for locals.
Italian$$
There is a Paul Kelly song, a friend insists, for every occasion.
For self-reflection. For trusting the process. For cutting a rug while simultaneously raising awareness about our propensity for reckless behaviour.
I mention the veteran Adelaide-born songwriter because I like Kelly’s music. But mostly because on the wet, wintry Tuesday that I drop into Vinotto – an endearing neighbourhood wine bar in the equally endearing coastal hamlet of Swanbourne – Kelly is playing at RAC Arena that same night. Which is why, suggests a chatty member of the floor team, the bar felt a little slower than usual.
But while the headcount at this urbane, split-level den of red brick and sandstone was low, spirits were high among guests. At ground level, an animated girl gang of four are huddled around one of the main room’s bistro tables. Two of the pals are on the banquette, the other two are seated on bentwood stools. All have gone for the banging $40 Tuesday steak and wine special – a puck of pan-fried rump cap; pepper sauce; pale and crunchy chips; plus a glass of aglianico from Italy – and I don’t blame them.
Yet as much as I love a weeknight meal deal, I wasn’t at Vinotto (just) to hunt down bargain-priced beef, but to investigate reports that Caitlin Johnston and Justin Scarvaci – Vinotto’s venue manager and head chef, respectively – are now in Swanny full-time following the recent sale of sister restaurant Yiamas. (Previously, Johnston and Scarvaci split their attention between both.) Sadly, like the bar’s regular Tuesday night crowd, Vinotto’s two head honchos also weren’t in, but you wouldn’t have known it.
Actually, I lie. You likely would have known it. Vinotto’s not an especially big space and if you know what Johnston and Scarvaci look like, you’ll quickly know whether they’re working or not. He’ll be in the squeeze bottle of a kitchen that looks about as spacious as your average glove box while Johnston’s jurisdiction is the bar and dining area where she and her front-of-house pals flit from table to table, sharing their zealous interest in tasty beverages.
While the word Vinotto speaks to a serious wine focus, what the name doesn’t convey is that there are also cocktails and vermouths for before you eat, digestives and amari for when you finish, plus drinks for those that aren’t drinking. The service – engaged and engaging – feels very in the zone for a neighbourhood place pitched largely at locals.
The dough used in golden, crimp-edged fried raviolo filled with braised oxtail comes from a vintage op-shop cookbook and, curiously, features white wine in its recipe. “That’s an empanada,” quips my maize-obsessed dining buddy when our raviolo arrives tableside alongside dainty plinths of crostoli crowned with anchovy and confit onion: an anchovy toast riffing on the classic French flatbread, pissaladière.
Pork and veal meatballs are slowly simmered in a Chinese masterstock-style broth until supremely succulent and topped with scattered with raisins and creamy pine nuts: the menu’s most direct nod, I reckon, to Scarvaci’s Sicilian heritage family.
Do you remember when Scarvaci was head chef at Lulu La Delizia? If not, frilly ribbons of lasagnette glossy with buttery, braised silverbeet are a pointed reminder that his handmade pasta game is formidable, and that you should put Vinotto’s Wednesday night $30 pasta and wine special in your diary.
While not every dish is a slam dunk – the demi-glace with the steak is a little too unctuous; the sponge element in the tiramisu a little too sodden – Vinotto’s food offering is still more signal than noise. And although the menu is certainly clipped, it comes across as whole, complete and, crucially, interesting.
I confess, it’s been a while since I took Vinotto for a spin but its quiet evolution, especially in terms of its food, is clear and admirable. But we shouldn’t be surprised really. As a wise man from Adelaide once said, from little things, big things grow.
The low-down
Atmosphere: a suburban wine bar with plenty of restaurant DNA
Go-to dishes: veal meatballs, fried raviolo
Drinks: a cool cross-section of modern and classic wine styles supplemented by smartly chosen drinks
Cost: about $160 for two people without drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
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Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
