Cafe Latte

By EWAN McDONALD for viva

The Man With No Name (anonymity is crucial for a reviewer) and partner rode out west in search of a good meal. The short answer is, yes, we found it; the long answer is, for reasons that will be explained, does anyone have a tape of last week's Six Feet Under?

On the long, straight, blessedly parking meter-free Pt Chevalier Rd, Cafe Latte has been brewed in what seems, at first glance, to be a street-front double garage that someone's given a chipboard floor and a bilious paint job.
It's one of many shops that used to line the tram route years ago when Uncle John was the vicar. From memory, this used to be a fruiterer's.

Look at the name and you'd think, "daytime coffee shop", and it is. Turn up here anytime after 7pm without a reservation, however, and you'll struggle to get a seat because excited, chattering locals are packed around the tables. We counted ourselves lucky to get the only one left, as we settled back to enjoy the warmth, the welcome, the enthusiasm, the delicious smells, the careful cooking, the cheerful, harassed waiter ... Okay, let's get the bad bit over and done with: there was a staff crisis on this night. It happens, as the management of any small restaurant will tell you, and it always happens on a night when the place is full. Enough to say that our food took a while to arrive and that's why we missed Six Feet Under.

However, this was an excellent meal at a place that is everything a good neighbourhood restaurant should be.
For starters, it's BYO, and the wine tastes so much better when you're not being gouged with a 150 per cent-
plus mark-up, and can truly enjoy the good red scored off a Pommy mate who foolishly backed his own team in the one-day cricket series. For those who don't remember to raid their stash, there's a selection of honest Italians at fair prices.

For seconds, Ciro Sannoni has a talent that some Italian chefs forget when they leave home: an exceptionally light touch with his sauces, both tomato and cream. We had planned to investigate his quattro formaggio as well, but the wrong gnocchi arrived at the table. In some restaurants, those who cannot remember the pasta are condemned to repay it, but it wasn't knocked off the bill, which came to a good-value $70.

Sannoni also has an excellent veal supplier, whose meat features in a number of delightfully executed dishes, and as winter comes on people will queue for his gutsy pork and fennel sausages.

Photos of old Naples line one wall, but there's one specialty of that city you won't find on the menu: pizza. Good on him. This is a trattoria, not a pizzeria, and despite the odd problema we'll be back.

Wine: Licensed and BYO.

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