Restaurant review: Mensa restaurant in Kent Town

It’s been a longstanding niggle of any chef when diners ask for a variation to the menu – but not at this new Italian.

Rabbit and green olive pappardelle at Mensa restaurant, Kent Town. Picture Eli Makris

Asking for a few bespoke inclusions in the set menu at some restaurants can be met with the hospitality equivalent of the Berlin Wall. Nothing in, nothing out.

However, at Mensa, a modern Italian trattoria just east of the city limits, our tentative negotiations are cut short. “Whatever you want, the answer is yes,” says our effervescent waitress with the kind of confidence that only comes with unequivocal backing from above.

As well as being a welcome change from surly eye rolls and uncompromising restrictions, the attitude speaks volumes about the professionalism and polish of an operation that has been open for only two months.

It’s no surprise, then, to learn that Mensa’s trio of owners are old hands at this game. They know what customers want (and don’t want) through hard-earned experience. Eugenio Maiale worked at the legendary Rigoni’s and opened Auge in Grote St before making a name for himself in some of Sydney’s best-known Italian restaurants. His schoolmate, Claudio Ferraro, was one of the founders of the Cibo cafes. Zoran Pavlovic is a family friend of Maiale and first worked for him as a 14-year-old dishwasher at Citrus in Hutt St.

Another schoolmate of the first pair, Nick Palumbo, is the landlord as well as owning the ice-cream shop next door, the first Adelaide outpost for the Gelato Messina chain he helped start many years ago in Sydney.

Porterhouse with cavolo and bagna cauda at Mensa restaurant, Kent Town. Picture Zach Crowther

Interior at Mensa restaurant, Kent Town. Picture Eli Makris

The two businesses fill the former home of an old ironworks on The Parade West at Kent Town. Mensa occupies the majority of the building, a wide, shallow space that designers Sans Arc have split into a series of zones featuring a mix of booths, banquettes, bar counter and standard table settings. The decor offers a few echoes of ’70s suburbia (particularly if you had an Italian friend) with all those cream bricks, timber panels, terrazzo and ruffled light shades. It’s a similar story with the white pebble dashed wall and juvenile olive trees on the veranda.

Mensa’s compact menu follows a traditional structure but at every stage, from single-serve snacks to pastas such as orecchiette with chicken livers and marsala, there is a chance to discover something beyond the local trattoria standards. Prices are upper-middle class, about what you would expect given the neighbourhood, making the Break Bread Together shared menu, at $80, compelling value.

Our DIY selection begins with thick slabs of Ferraro’s excellent ciabatta accompanied by a big pool of chilli oil and grated pecorino. No skimping there. Jumbo green olives stuffed with pork and veal mince, crumbed and fried are a magical mouthful once they have cooled enough to handle. A raw WA scallop diced and returned to its shell has a beautifully balanced limoncello/balsamic dressing but the meat itself is a little soggy and lacking flavour.

The daily special salad of nannygai, fennel, grapefruit and radicchio more than justifies its inclusion. Perky leaves, big clumps of confit-cooked fish, white anchovies and a defining line of acidity/bitterness from the citrus fruit and dressing make this the food equivalent of a Campari spritz for late summer.

Rum baba at Mensa restaurant, Kent Town. Picture Eli Makris

Ziti pasta tubes are tossed in an amalgam of two classic sauces as the on-trend creamy tomato/chilli/vodka combination is finished with shreds of pickled blue swimmer crab that add some body and crustacean sweetness. And wide pappardelle ribbons wrap their loving arms around a slow braise of rabbit, green olive and sage that, with its light-bodied savouriness, goes wonderfully with a glass of Chianti.

Mensa’s grill uses three types of fuel, contributing to the extra smokiness in a piece of porterhouse that has spent longer than usual cooking to medium-rare over the coals, before being sliced and finished with a sauce inspired by the anchovy-based dip bagna cauda. The steak comes with fried wedges of potato that, while irresistible, take the total salt quota to another level.

Interior at Mensa restaurant, Kent Town. Picture Jack Fenby

Rum baba is one of a handful of nostalgic desserts that are back in vogue and this souped-up rendition shows why.

A freshly baked yeast cake is filled with mascarpone, soaked in a rum syrup and served on a base of crème anglaise and amarena cherry. It’s decadent, creamy and just a little boozy, with echoes of both the tuckshop kitchener bun and grandpa’s Christmas trifle.

Even on a midweek night, Mensa pulls a crowd, with few tables empty. Give the people what they want and it’s amazing what happens.