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“Do you want some marijuana with your food?”

If you ate regularly at landmark Northbridge Italian restaurant Sorrento (1949-2021), you may have heard its magnetic owner Alfonso Di Lanzo say this to you, sotto voce, the corners of his lips curled into a half-grin. If your brain is wired like mine, you were probably concerned that this Italian gentleman was taking the Mediterranean custom of eating weeds a little too far and might find himself on the wrong side of the law. But we – or at least I – needn’t have worried. As it turns out, “marijuana” was simply a code word for chilli. I know this now thanks to Fiona Di Lanzo, Alfonso’s daughter who grew up working at Sorrento learning the finer points of hospitality from mum and dad as well as other legendary Perth Italian restaurateurs.

After a stint in Melbourne, Fiona returned home and opened the Mount Hawthorn wine bar La Madonna Nera, a svelte dagger of a space whose timeless good looks speak to its owner’s past life as an architect and interior designer. Booths and tables for two are pressed up against the wall. Italianate knickknacks and flattering lighting set the mood. A communal table wiggles its way through the room and terminates in the open kitchen. The look and spirit of the room calls to mind the sort of well-worn enoteca that travellers dream of finding while holidaying in Italy, only you can’t buy takeaway wines.

But then you realise that La Madonna Nera’s salami plate ($23) supplemented by antipasti such as preserved eggplant and chillies stuffed with tuna and capers – all made by Alfonso, no less – is a cut above the stale Ritz and half-finished hummus doing purgatory in your pantry and fridge, and the idea of drinking in-situ rather than at home suddenly becomes very attractive. Like any wine bar, La Madonna Nera works great as somewhere to sip and snack, but make time to wine and dine and you’ll get a sense of the new-school-old-school thinking quietly fuelling the operation. As is commonplace among this city’s better Italian eateries, the menu is short but the ideas are sharp. Di Lanzo and her head chef Anthony Yuill – who’s back for his second tour of duty after helping open Bassendean small bar Bertie – have shoehorned many strong ideas into the carte’s dozen-or-so items including (hurrah!) dishes that give vegetables their proper dues.

Dishes such as maccu ($16): a fava bean soup that Di Lanzo has retrieved from
deep within the Sicilian food Matrix, presented as a loose “dip” for dense house
focaccia. You’ll want plenty of focc at-hand for the vital act of scarpetta – using bread to mop up leftover sauces on plates – including the zippy blend of capers, sherry vinegar and green raisins rehydrated in black tea that accompanies blanched, room-temperature paintbrushes of the sprouting cauliflower known as fioretto ($18). As an aside, I’d love to see more restaurants – Italian or otherwise – exploring the possibilities and deliciousness of room-temperature vegetables, especially coming into the warmer months.

The kitchen’s interest in underdog ingredients goes beyond just the plant-based.
Tender skewers of grilled swordfish ($21 for two) dressed with a sweet Venetian-
inspired mess of stewed onions and currants are proof that swordfish, when handled well, has much to offer eaters. Young goat braised until it surrenders into a wet tangle of meat equals the foundations for a splendid ragu to accompany bitey handkerchiefs of fazzoletti pasta ($32). Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not seeing pork chops ($38) on as many menus as I used to, or at least served ones with house made mustard fruits (fruit preserved in sugar and poached in a mustard-flavoured syrup) that taste like Christmas, anyway. One chop – dry-aged, grilled medium-well, sliced into meaty fingers – works great as a main
between two.

According to the menu, your dessert options are either cheese ($19 and $28) or a jiggly vanilla bean panacotta scooped out of a big tray ($15, fine albeit somewhat safe and generic). I’d like to suggest a third, far more interesting way to end your meal – amaro, Italy’s famously bitter, invigorating digestive spirits that are as regional as pasta shapes and wine styles. You’ll find more than 50 amari – the plural of amaro – at La Madonna Nera. If you’ve gone hard on the food and drink, you might feel like you’ll need the help of every one of them to get back on your feet. Don’t feel bad. That’s what they’re for and Italians have been consuming amari medically and recreationally for centuries. It’s yet another aspect of Italian culture and hospitality that Di Lanzo is sharing with Perth via her singular, precious bar.

“It’s about ritual,” she says. “It’s about necessity.”