Chianti Bistro

How do you take over a restaurant that has operated under the same owners for 29 years?

Do you, a) stick newspaper over the windows, rip out the fittings, redesign the dining room, import a new colour scheme, slap on a new name and start afresh? Or, b) change absolutely nothing?

The answer, according to the Restaurateur's Little Red Handbook, is, of course, the former, although try telling the bunch of contrarians who have taken over Chianti Bistro. Having fed Fitzroy North since 1985 without ever troubling the wider populace, it continues to ply its trade from behind a neon sign, tucked neatly between the paint shop and the hairdresser.

The new owners are a foursome, two of whom run nearby cafe Mixed Business and one of whom, handily enough, is a chef who worked with Guy Grossi at Florentino and Frank Camorra in the early years of MoVida. With the final member the kind of waiter who makes eating at the bar a pleasure - quite a feat considering it's a polished pine bolthole between the dining room and courtyard - they're a suitable gang to go into the restaurant equivalent of witness protection. Pass the cannoli.

I think - maybe - their approach is a clever kind of dog-whistle anti-design, audible only to the bearded and tattooed hipster types now populating the dining room. One person sees a beaten copper fire flue and thinks ''Mmm, that'll be cosy in winter''; another falls about laughing because their parents had one exactly the same in their rumpus room. One person sees exposed red brick archways, varnished pine and murals (a contra for pasta back in the day, apparently) and dials the Projects of Imagination emergency hotline; another stops to dine on its backwards-looking cultural irony.

Italian food, on the other hand, doesn't do irony. You don't mess with the script honed by a nation with ''produce-driven'' engraved on its collective soul, and although chef Domenic Stanton isn't Italian, he has their knack for making just a few ingredients realise their potential. The snacking action at the start of Chianti's tight and time-honoured menu, for example: a smear of livery duck parfait on crostini; cheesy fontina and thyme croquettes; or goat's cheese-stuffed fried zucchini flowers with a sparing drizzle of honey. Good stuff, all. Two of the tastiest lamb chops, done Roman-style ''scotta ditto'' (burnt fingers, using the charry bone as a handle) deserve a shout-out to the fat-marbled heritage breed Ryeland lamb. It needs nothing more than a squeeze of lemon, although a creamy mint salsa also hops along for the ride.

They make their own pasta: tortellini in brodo, with its excellent Chianina beef-filled dumplings, is let down by a weightless, insubstantial chicken broth; the ricotta gnocchi makes a virtue of its levitation skills, however, tethered to the earth by a burnt butter sauce with pine and grey ghost mushrooms (praise be to autumn) and sage leaves.

Backed by six sides with a farmers' market sensibility (green beans with anchovy and garlic; cannellini beans with cavolo nero), the five mains get down to business without any fuss. You'll know them all. Ossobuco clocks on for work with its saucy depths enhanced by orange peel, plus bones for marrow-sucking and a hill of saffron-tinged risotto milanese. Each grain is distinct, avoiding the fate technically known as ''stodgy gloop''. The duck is even better: the gnarly dark meat of a confit leg, roasted to order, and the salty skinned breast blushing as pink as the blushingest bride, balanced with the uncomplicated additions of a buttery carrot puree and whole baby carrots with their green tops feathering out pleasantly. It's rugged stuff, homey and righteous, and if at dessert the rum baba could have been heavier on the booze - I prefer mine to blow 0.05 - the saffron gelato with it is impeccable.

Chianti Bistro, in a nutshell, is clever. Its new approach to the old restaurant problem has saved the owners a fortune in redesign bills, but it's something more than that. It's a genre exercise with a knowing smirk and food good enough to stop it being completely insufferable. Bring on the next 29 years.

THE LOWDOWN
The best bit Immersive Italian
The worst bit Depends how you feel about varnished pine
Go-to dish Ricotta gnocchi, mushrooms and sage, $17/$26

Twitter: @LarissaDubecki or email: ldubecki@fairfaxmedia.com.au