Etto

Fresh pasta joins the ranks of ''honorable fast food'' sustaining this town's time-poor food savants. At Etto, a pocket-sized pasta bar, they make two batches of pasta a day, pushing fresh dough through extrusion machines that crowd the kitchen benches. Made from sturdy durum semolina flour, water and salt, the end product sits in neat bundles at the counter.

Compared with dried pasta, cooked al dente fresh pasta is a little less chewy at its core. Being fresh means it cooks quick: in less than four minutes. Etto's is cooked with digital-timer precision; it's automatically hoicked out of the boiling water - and away from any potential to be over-cooked.

The Etto concept is simple: choose your pasta, choose your sauce, then choose a table on which to plant your number-on-a-stick or wait for your takeaway noodle box. At the fancier end of the menu, there's rigatoni tossed with black truffle butter and chewy crescents of salami, topped with fine panko and parsley crumbs.

Ravioli, filled with spinach and ricotta, is partly responsible for Etto going through 100 kilograms of napoli sauce every week. But the major napoli consumer is spaghetti bolognese, cooked to an oily rich beef ragu over four hours. Etto buys in amaranth and rice penne, and quinoa and amaranth fusilli, which are gluten-free; try one of them tossed with smoked salmon, capers and cultured creme fraiche.

Other than pasta, there's garlic bread or ciabatta (if you're carb-loading), and a few salads, like a bowl of sprightly green leaves topped with cucumber slices and zingy Mount Zero chardonnay vinaigrette.

If you're eating in, it'll be from plastic plates, and on one of two tables or bench seats inside. There are more tables out on Clarendon Street, where you can prop on a locally designed, bright coloured steel stool among office workers huddled around ciggies, bag-laden shoppers and maybe the odd crow fishing in the bin. While Etto is counter service, a multi-tasking flour-dusted staff member might still come over to replenish your empty water bottle.

If you're taking away, consider plonking on the street's many public seats to eat, before your pasta cools and clumps.

Most dishes hover around the $12 mark - not bad for a homely hot meal. There are kids' serves, too (100 grams, known as an ''etto'' in some Italian delis). That a chef and two brand-marketing professionals set up Etto shows in the quality of the food and the place's hip identity. There are red, up-turned colanders for light fittings, and there's even a reference to ''street'', in the ''Italian Street Pasta'' slogan. It's well considered and well done: it's the thinking person's fast food.

Do … Watch for a new Etto, with more of an eat-in focus, opening in Malvern next March.

Don't … Like parmesan? Say so when ordering.

Dish … Rigatoni with black truffle butter

Vibe … Fast, fresh, breezy