Hotel restaurants are long past just offering up a BLT and an overcooked steak, but it's still a treat to be impressed in what is essentially an extension of a hotel lobby - even more so when it's hidden in the suburbs.

No. 10 Restaurant and Bar is the food offering on the ground floor of Woden's Abode Hotel. The restaurant sits just to the side of the hotel's reception, and manages to be spacious yet intimate and cosy. A leather banquette runs down one side with a smattering of cushions, pendant lights hang from the ceiling and the kitchen is hidden away down one end. 

The restaurant has been around for almost a year - it took over the space formerly occupied by American-style barbecue joint Smoque Woden. 

For someone who loves to try new wines, the drinks menu is a particularly exciting start. The wine list is an interesting mix of locals and other Australian drops, with a couple from New Zealand and one Italian wine thrown in. Best of all, all of them bar one is available by the glass. The Canberra wines range from the stalwarts (Clonakilla and Shaw Vineyard) to the lesser known (Mada and Three Lads). Beers, cocktails and spirits are more what you'd see often on a bar menu.

Offering so many wines by the glass has the added challenge of keeping them all fresh, and my first sip of the Three Lads Sangiovese 2015 ($13) tastes a little off. Upon bringing it to the attention of our waitress, the wine is promptly whipped away, and a fresh glass from a new bottle is poured at the table. This also prompts an in-depth conversation about wine with our waitress, who is clearly full of knowledge in the area.

The menu is split into share plates, entrees, mains and desserts. The focus seems to be on offering the sort of things people would expect on a menu, while stepping the dish up a notch - think burgers, a schnitzel, steak, pork belly and risotto.

To start, the spinach and cheese arancini ($13.50) comes with three crisply fried balls, topped with a handful of rocket. The arancini filling itself doesn't have a heap of flavour, instead relying more on the beetroot puree it comes served on. 

The sticky fried pork belly entree ($15) is dished up as a simple Asian-style salad, with bean sprouts, coriander and chilli with a tasty hoisin and sesame dressing. The pork is perhaps a touch dry, but it's a tasty dish none-the-less, and a more interesting way to eat morsels of pork belly.

There aren't a lot of vegetarian meals on the menu, but the mushroom and truffle strozzapreti pasta ($28) is a good meat-free option. The pasta, which is like slimmer, elongated penne, comes with a rich mushroom ragout, topped with plenty of wild rocket and a decent grating of parmesan. This is quite an enjoyable dish - the truffle flavour is only subtle but the creamy sauce manages to ooze flavour without being sickeningly rich. 

The lamb shanks ($26 for one, $36 for two) are well cooked, with meat falling from the bone and a generous serving. The dish is satisfyingly hearty, particularly lifted by the flavour of a creamy roasted cauliflower puree and jus.

No. 10 Restaurant and Bar is casual, but feels a little more grown up than your average suburban eatery. And like a silky pinot noir on a cooler evening, it's well and truly done the job for us this particular weeknight.