All'antico Trattoria

There's nothing new, innovative or grand about All'antico. But that's just the way the owners of this family-owned restaurant like it. They're proud to offer a refuge from the fast and flashy.

Teresa Oates opened All'antico ("the old way") in October last year, after co-authoring two Mangia! Mangia! cookbooks, which are like scrapbooks of Calabrian family recipes and rites, including sugo-making and curing. "The restaurant is the last chapter, to finish the story," Oates says.

Several of the menu's dozen dishes are from the books, including grated zucchini fritters called vecchiarelli ("old people") because they look a bit wrinkly. They're simple, easy, home-style. But a porcini, chestnut and button mushroom soup is so sturdy, creamily rounded and dignified, it makes other soups look all wet. It's full of chopped mushrooms, and served with long toasted batons spread with garlicky rocket pesto that sink into the soup and soak up the pungent, woodsy flavour.

Although the menu is refreshed every week, it's a sure bet that it will include a game meat dish such as goat or rabbit. For entree, there might be a light, tomatoey braise of small pieces of rabbit with two thin, spongy pieces of ricotta-and-egg flan. The rabbit is flavourful, even if some pieces are chewy, and the eggy flan is a good savoury soaker.

To follow, there may be rabbit bits braised in white wine with house-cured green olives, cherry tomatoes and whole baby carrots. Grab a fork in one hand to pick the tender flesh and some bread in the other to soak up the sauce.

They walk the old-school walk here and make most of the pasta in-house. Long, thin strands of tagliarini (narrower than tagliatelle) might come tossed with a rich, oily blend of smoked trout, fennel, pinenuts, currants and roasted cherry tomatoes. Or, for something weightier, cavatelli (like rolled bullets) with a veal ossobuco ragu.

All'antico graces a big, window-wrapped corner of Heidelberg's high street. It's a straight-faced place, eschewing tongue-in-cheek Italian kitsch-enalia. There's no gingham, no frescoes to signal its sentimentality for the old country. But the staff and the customers are giveaways.

That sixty-something woman moving carefully from table to table, asking guests how they liked their meal, is Teresa Oates' mother, Maria. She typifies the Italian approach to retirement: there is no retirement. But her presence also demonstrates a mighty family bond that embraces young and old: Oates's children work here, too. And the customers, mostly groups of Italian-Australians, are also mostly regulars.

All'antico is a feel-good chapter in this family's narrative - of coming together over handmade food - and it's a good one to settle into on a wintry night.

Do … BYO (corkage $5 a bottle)
Don't … Double-take on the bill; it really is that reasonably priced
Dish … Rabbit
Vibe … Heidelberg's Italian social club

goodfoodunder30@theage.com.au