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Every seat in this wine bar is hot property. Squeeze onto a stool at the bar, crowded with Balwyn’s svelte, loafer-wearing dads, and you’ll have unrivalled views of blue cheese and rosy prosciutto legs.

The slinky dining room down the back is better for languorous lunches of smoke-kissed calamari (enjoying a Mediterranean moment with lemon and capers), charcoal-grilled duck with sticky skin and deep-pink meat, and bowls of buttery pappardelle strewn with soulful rabbit ragu. Each bite is backed by a cellar of big Italian names and unsung grapes such as briny timorasso, and come midweek there’s BYO.

A frou-frou finale of ginger, apple and caramel in four textures makes the familiar exciting, while around you concrete, steel and marble inject more new into the old without diluting Italy’s holy trinity: great wine, conversation and food.