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Testun is a bar. It’s a good bar. It’s in a small line of shops north of the main Beaufort Street restaurant strip in Mount Lawley. It had disco lights on the table, pulsating through purple, orange, green, yellow and blue. Not too sure what that brought to the dining experience, but it played havoc with photography.

It reminded one of the lighting in small, backstreet bars in backblocks Italy where they seem to have a love affair with garish neon and flickering LEDs. Authentic. I guess so.

The staff was the usual collection of the young and the awesome in an array of vintage clothing, hair colours and lace up boots. Attentive, smart and on top of their jobs. No hauteur, no sly “bloody baby boomer” eye rolling. They were interested. They cared, but not too much. Way too cool to be effusive. Thank heavens.

The windows were clad, demurely, in half lace curtains. The ceiling was bright green, the walls were exposed brick and adorned with shelves of bric-a-brac and framed maps of Italy. The room was well lit. A little too well lit, and I was starting to spasm from the ever-changing colours of table lamps.

Our waiter was Italian and very good with just the right amount of enthusiasm tempered with insouciance.

Chairs were comfortable. Tables were the right size. Service was prompt. The wine list is modest.

And then, the coup de foudre, the best pork chop I’ve ever eaten. Some context. There is no need to eat a dried out overcooked pork chop. Not these days anyway. Back in the day we were worried about parasites in pork. Those days are long gone, but the legacy of that thinking has meant pork chops in restaurants are universally overcooked. Even in 2023.

The waiter made it clear that their pork chop was cooked medium rare, encouraging diners perhaps to request it more cooked if they’re squeamish. I nodded enthusiastically. It came out less than medium rare and it was a bloody – literally – revelation. Tender, moist, porky, juicy and 100 per cent exquisite.

Never had a pork chop better. For that alone Testun demands a high score. It was a pork rib eye on the bone, accompanied with a zesty, creamy apple cider, dill and mustard sauce, direct from the French bistro playbook. It was teamed with an always welcome celeriac remoulade adding crunch and piquant mayonnaise creaminess.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Perfection.

Spaghetti alla chitarra was served with what they call their “gran ragu” a rich veal and pork sauce, nicely chunky and glossy. It was garnished with grated pecorino Calcagno, a peppercorn infused hard sheep milk cheese my father used to call pepato. He was a huge fan, as was I. You don’t often see it in Australia.

At the top of the meal, we shared some antipasti, including a crostini topped with whipped squacquerone cheese – they love their rare cheeses – topped with anchovy and “firecracker sauce.” Squacquerone, by the way, is a fresh curd cheese from Emilia Romagna, with a tangy taste and a wobbly mouthfeel.

Another crostini was topped with braised, creamed bitter greens and piave cheese, sunburnt by a good blast from a blow torch. This is a dish that harks back to the days when hungry peasants used to pick herbs and stinging nettles from the roadside and braise them for supper. Piave cheese hails from the Veneto and is made from cow’s milk. Wonderful. The underlying bread on the crostino was very good and nicely charred.

Baccala and potato crochetta was noticeable for the large chunks of baccala, dried cod, and its chunky, generous nature. Yes, it was another croquette in a restaurant marketplace overcrowded with the bloody things, many of them deeply ordinary, but it was a standout.

So, there you go. The Testun experience is a good one: casual, local, an every nighter for those in the neighbourhood. The cooking is good. The service is on the down low, but attentive. All very good really. The perfect local.

Go for the pork chop. It’s the best in town.