When did all the Italian restaurants clear out of the CBD?

Coppa Spuntino used to be a post-work go-to on Creek Street. But that venue went the way of the pandemic, and, despite a hugely successful, group-reviving extended pop-up in the former digs of Il Centro (also a COVID casualty), owners Tom Sanceau and Bonnie Shearston currently have the concept on ice while they focus on other projects.

There was Otto at 480 Queen, but it too shifted out of the city during the pandemic to its current waterside digs at South Bank.

Which leaves … not much. There’s Guy Grossi’s Settimo at The Westin on Mary Street, but it’s an upmarket spot suited for occasion dining. Simone Presta wanted to create something more casual and approachable.

“I absolutely noticed that lack of Italian restaurants in the city,” Presta says. “We have Scugnizzi, of course [a hole-in-the-wall on Adelaide Street opened in 2023 by Presta and chef Carmine Guarino] and now Doughcraft, but there’s not too much else.”

City slickers might know Doughcraft as a French-Italian bakery that expanded from its original Albion home in February into the former Mary Street digs of Leonard’s Bar & Bistro. But now Presta and co-owners Steven Chevalier and Salvatore Compagnone are opening the venue at night as a casual, fast-paced Italian restaurant with a menu that’s loosely anchored in Rome but takes inspiration from around the peninsula and beyond.

“You look at this place and it gives you that dining vibe,” Presta says. “It’s meant to be utilised from sunrise to sunset.

“I’m Italian, and one of my business partners [Chevalier] is French. He’s doing his thing with the bakery with imported butter from France and a team of French bakers … and I want to do my thing: Italian dining – pasta and pinsa.”

Don’t know pinsa? It’s a Roman flatbread similar to pizza but with a base made from soy, rice and wholegrain flours that (at Doughcraft) is fermented for 48 hours. Presta reckons it’s lighter to eat, easier to digest and it comes with a crunchier base than, say, a Napoli pizza, despite being cooked at a lower temperature in Doughcraft’s bread oven.

“Here, it’s almost like a gourmet pizza, because we apply the condiments to each slice rather than put it all over the top,” Presta says.

There are eight pinsas on Doughtcraft’s menu including a margherita (tomato, buffalo mozzarella and crystallised basil), a tartufo (mushrooms, Italian sausage, provola and black truffle), a mortazza (mortadella with sun-dried cherry tomatoes, pistachio and stracciatella) and the Sfizio (cured salmon with rocket, whipped buffalo mozzarella, beetroot and lemon zest).

Away from pinsa, Rome-born head chef Edoardo Bianchini is cooking house-made pasta such as a crab meat spaghetti with a white-wine reduction, chilli, breadcrumbs, garlic and lemon zest; gnocchi in pumpkin sauce with feta cheese, fried kale and toasted almonds; and a beef brisket fettuccine ragu with porcini mushrooms, a red wine reduction, tomato sauce and parmesan.

A short selection of main plates includes grilled free-range spatchcock with rosemary potatoes and grilled lemon, grilled tiger prawns with lardo, a cannelini bean cream, sweet paprika and lemon zest, and a 300-gram roasted sirloin with rocket, cherry tomatoes, parmesan and vincotto.

It’s all as approachable as promised, with none of the pastas priced over $34 and the mains $48.

“There are so many Italian restaurants in Brisbane, so we wanted to create something different with a little twist,” Presta says.

For drinks, the cocktail list has been expanded from Doughcraft’s previously tight aperitivo hour selection and includes a bunch of twists on the classics, and the venue now serves a 40-bottle wine list that focuses mainly on Italian and French drops.

“We have the Kangaroo Point Bridge being built right here and the casino just up the road. So this little corner is going to be the James Street of the city.”

Simone Presta

The premises themselves remain mostly unchanged from their days as Leonard’s, with its fetching exposed brick walls, mosaic tiled floors, and curtains and timber of the dining room.

But Presta, Chevalier and Compagnone have added new table lamps. Along with the new (as of February) art on the walls, it gives the restaurant a livelier feel, and it’s difficult to argue with Presta’s thought that it’s a space meant to be seen at night.

He also thinks of Doughcraft as part of a new CBD food precinct, with Settimo located just up Mary Street, Naldham House reopening across Felix Street and the old Buffalo Bar now being refurbished.

“We have the Kangaroo Point Bridge being built right here and the casino just up the road,” Presta says. “So this little corner is going to be the James Street of the city.”

Open Mon 7am-2pm; Tue-Fri 7am-2pm, 5pm-10pm; Sat 5pm-10pm

181 Mary Street, Brisbane, 0431 553 833

doughcraftbne.com