Expect a concise, regionally inspired breakfast and lunch menu in a warmly detailed heritage space, with a bar component to follow.
Mark Rotolone has always run his own race with Mosconi. This fabulous little Italian restaurant in a repurposed wartime Nissen hut is a favourite among James Street locals, in part because it’s so different to the rest of the precinct.
“It allows for a different offering,” Rotolone says. “You’re not smack in the middle of it, you’re on a side street with the little laneway off to the side. It’s something that Brisbane needs, I think.
“Everybody goes fast in one direction and I guess, for me, I just wanted to slow it down.”
Rotolone says it will be the same approach with Tino, an all-day eatery the restaurateur will open in April in the twin tenancy next door to Mosconi formerly occupied by King Arthur Cafe.
“I ran The Little Larder [on Moray Street, now Hey Mr] for quite a few years, and that was one of the first backstreet cafes,” he says. “It was very simple, very honest. And I love that: getting to know the people, know their coffee order. Have them sit out front, read the paper. And that’s definitely one of the elements I want to encourage with Tino.”
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In charge of Tino’s design is George Kouparitsas Architects and Meredith Burke from By Burke Design.
“Meredith has done all my venues,” Rotolone says.
Expect a pared back, functional venue with counter seating at a sizeable bar and a kitchen that’s integrated into the dining space. The restaurant will have darker, richer colour scheme than Mosconi with plenty or burgundy and clotted cream. Upstairs there will be a mezzanine, although Rotolone is yet to decide whether it will be utilised by Mosconi or Tino, or both.
“I wanted that feeling of when you walk down a street in Europe, you could pop into any venue and it doesn’t have a date stamp on it. It could’ve been there for 20 years or two years. I want something that evolves, that has its own personality and you add to it as you need it.”
Mosconi chef Catherine Anders will oversee Tino’s food. Rotolone says her breakfast and lunch menus will be “a little less structured” than Mosconi’s and focus on regional flavours presented in a lighter, relatively simple style.
“I don’t see it as big, greasy breakfasts,” Rotolone says. “And lunch will perhaps lean towards salads and that kind of thing. I just want there to be those points of difference that maybe take a little inspiration from Europe.
“I guess we were looking to create an elevated breakfast spot – something locals could adopt as their own and is very no-fuss.”
Once breakfast and lunch are up and running, Rotolone intends to keep Tino open later in the day for aperitifs, Negronis and the like, operating alongside Mosconi as its dinner service kicks in.
“It will just be a natural evolution of the space,” he says. “That’s how I tend to develop my venues.”
Tino is currently scheduled to open in April.
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
