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Does Brisbane need another Italian restaurant? Maybe not.

This city’s love for Italian cuisine was in danger of curdling during the pandemic.

Each week, it seemed, another operator opened a dining room, peddling pizza or pasta to sate our never-ending desire for comfort food.

Thankfully, restaurateurs haven’t been standing still, with more nuance slowly being added to the market.

You have the fastidiously hand-shaped pasta at Ramona Trattoria in Camp Hill, or the Italo-disco vibes of Sasso Italiano in Woolloongabba.

Pilloni, an immaculately presented 70-seat eatery on Hardgrave Road in West End, sets itself apart by cooking Sardinian food.

Think suckling pig, hearty traditional pastas such as culurgiones, and plenty of seafood to reference the turquoise coasts of Italy’s second-biggest island.

It reflects a growing regionalism in Italian food in this country, as diners’ collective view of the cuisine goes high-def.

It says a lot about owners Andrea Contin and Valentina Vigni’s reputation that most will associate Pilloni with La Lupa, their much-loved Montague Road eatery, rather than Mondo Organics – a storied organic restaurant (Australia’s first, it was often billed as) that existed in the space from 2000 to 2015.

And to be fair, stepping inside, you wouldn’t much recognise the echoes of Mondo (or Original Dave’s Low and Slow BBQ, a very good barbecue joint that did time in the space in 2017 and 2018).

Pilloni has been split into four different spaces: a bar area, closest to the road, which has an additional 30 seats; an internal dining space called the Camino, which sits beyond a door and adjacent to the open kitchen with its hearth fuelled by ironbark, olive branches and oak; the Terrazzo, a beautiful enclosed terrace; and the Cantina, a private dining space.

The fit-out is so delightful, defined by timber, tiled floors, exposed brick, rattan furniture and pale blue walls crammed full of watercolours, it’s almost a shame Contin and Vigni have to populate it with diners five nights a week.

The flip side with a sectioned restaurant like this is it can be challenging to staff – or perhaps a challenge for punters to navigate – as highlighted by our arrival through the front door, into the bar and into … an empty space.

We’re left hanging for a couple of moments, wondering what to do and where to go, while a busy barkeep takes a moment to register our presence.

It’s not a big issue but sticks out in an age when many restaurants work hard to nail the experience of entering a dining room.

The service is otherwise bang on: knowledgeable, helpful, efficient – impressive for a new venue but perhaps no surprise when you have veterans of Essa and Hobart’s Fico motoring around on the floor. “Have you decided?” one asks, smiling.

We have, because head chef Mimmo Miceli has made it so easy for us.

Pilloni’s menu is a paean to post-pandemic simplicity, split into snacks, entrees, pastas, mains, sides and desserts, with a clutch of options in each.

It’s the kind of thing that makes people bang on about produce-led dining.

We start with a pair of faine di ceci ($9 each), a crisp chickpea tart with pecorino cream, onion jam, charred corn, puffed quinoa and smoked paprika.

This is how appetisers should be: light and balanced, the pecorino cream smooth, and the whole thing struck through by the smoke of the paprika.

They crumble as soon as we bite into them, corn flying everywhere, but who cares.

The good times keep rolling with an effortless Fremantle octopus entree ($31).

Sous vide and then finished on embers, it’s luscious and smoky, offset by fluffy potato foam, olives and pimiento.

It’s the kind of thing that makes people bang on about produce-led dining.

Not quite as convincing is a carpaccio ($29) of nine-score eye of round Wagyu finished with fermented peach, basil and pecorino.

It’s a total looker and the preparation of the protein is exceptional, but this party on the plate doesn’t quite translate to the palate, the basil, peach and pecorino combining to create just a touch too much sharpness.

It’s a similar mix with the main plates.

Kingfish cooked over the coals ($45) and served with asparagus and bottarga displays stacks of technique but is a bit slight on seasoning for my liking – I keep distractedly searching around for more of the heirloom tomato coulis that accompanies the dish.

Then again, it’s sharing the spotlight with Miceli’s interpretation of culurgiones ($33), a classic potato-stuffed pasta that has its origins in Ogliastra, in eastern Sardinia.

This is a sublime take on rustic Mediterranean food, the pasta firm and the mint, basil pesto and tomato sugo coming together to give the dish an elegant sweetness.

It’s real lick-the-plate stuff.

To finish, a menjar blanc olive oil cake ($16) is a supple, subtle crowd pleaser when served with white-chocolate namelaka and charred mango, and matches brilliantly with a Silvio Carta mirto, a fragrant myrtle berry-driven liqueur that one of the floor staff talks me into.

The mirto is just the final touch in a cracking run of wines (perhaps it shouldn’t be anything but when Contin also owns a wine-import business) that reached its apotheosis with a glass of Cantina Sannas Maria Pettena rosato ($26) – a charismatic, textural stunner when matched with Miceli’s elevated comfort food.

And as different as Pilloni hits with its Sardinian cuisine, comfort is still its through line.

It’s in the colourful, homely dining room illuminated by the glow of the hearth, or the terrace during the afternoon when it fills with natural light.

And most of all, it’s in the food, which at its best will have locals swooning.

Expect Pilloni to become a West End go-to.

Pilloni

166 Hardgrave Road, West End

(07) 3846 2745

Mon-Fri 5-10pm; Sat-Sun 12-3pm, 5-10pm

pilloni.com.au