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Santa Lucia

Kirsten Lawson

Santa Lucia at Kingston.
Santa Lucia at Kingston.Melissa Adams

12/20

Italian$$

There's no question Santa Lucia has a place in the heart of many Canberrans; what place it holds in the mosh pit of modern dining is harder to pinpoint.

This cheery Italian eatery opened in 1975 in Kingston (almost 40 years old!), before it headed for the burbs in Swinger Hill in 2009. With Swinger Hill still going strong, Santa Lucia has opened a second eatery back in Kingston in a spot I last remember as housing Miro, a restaurant that played on the work of the surrealist Spanish artist in its decor if not in its food.

The connection is probably a stretch but we are feeling a certain surrealist disconnect tonight. We're in the old Kingston, now a bit tatty and tired in parts but also with the new breed of restaurant moving in - Penny University, all milk crates and jam jars with a serious chef; the European, sleek and steely in the way of grown-up wine bars, and Little Brooklyn, tuned determinedly into the fixation with American-style barbecue. What is Santa Lucia doing among all this?

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Beachy flavour: Charred calamari.
Beachy flavour: Charred calamari.Melissa Adams

The fit-out isn't polished, not in the least really - just white walls curved in the Miro fashion, dark carpet tiles, a kitchen hatch in the middle. In a nod to decoration, there are a few big Italian-look prints on the walls which might be blown-up old photos of the immigrant family that owns the place, and red and white checked tablecloths on the tables, cheerful and of the kind you still see rather ubiquitously in Roman laneways.

It's busy this Thursday night, with plenty of happy noise.

This is old-style Italian, which perhaps explains the fondness people feel for it, like a nostalgia for more straightforward times before food became a minefield of chichi, highly niche ingredients not only complicated to say out loud but very clubby as though the food world made a playground pact to shun those not in the know. No such complication at Santa Lucia.

Scaloppine alla marsala: veal simmered in a dark sweet  dessert wine.
Scaloppine alla marsala: veal simmered in a dark sweet dessert wine.Melissa Adams
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The antipasto menu offers "anchovies $8". What is this, I ask, expecting an answer on the provenance of these anchovies, the variety, and how they're being served. I get a baffled look and a question in response: What do you mean? They're standard anchovies. Which it turns out they are, a bowl of anchovies in oil, lots of them, robust in taste, firm in texture, and utterly unadorned. There's a plate of plain sliced Italian-style bread and square pats of butter in their wrappers. I feel like I would welcome the simplicity if I were on an old wooden deck reaching to an overpopulated beach and a blue Mediterranean sea with a tumbler of rough red. It's OK in Kingston also, nicely uncompromising, but here the lack of adornment is more surprising.

I'm not so fond of our sizzling prawns in garlic and chilli ($17.50), a little hot pot of bubbling olive oil, so hot the prawns feel a little overdone by the time they reach the table.

The zucchini fritters ($11) from the specials board are pretty oily and quite dark. Simply presented, just some lettuce leaves, a wedge of lemon and some dark sauce that might be balsamic based. Too oily in the end, and perhaps better if they were small, like chippy snacks.

Roman red and white checked tablecloths.
Roman red and white checked tablecloths.Melissa Adams

In mains, we head straight for the veal, such a mainstay of this kind of menu, and toss up between two classic presentations - saltimbocca or masala (both $26), opting for the masala. The sauce is the only thing that lets this dish down. It's a very big plate of food - serves are hearty here, with fillets of tender meat on top of a good pile of charry veges, which I like - zucchini, carrot, beans, corn cob. There's a lot of sweet potato shavings on top, robust and adding a good crunch. The sauce is overly sweet, quite cloying and reminds us of the caramel taste of brown sugar. But hey, it's a hearty combination of meat and veges you'd be happy to face on the family dinner table.

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The puttanesca ($18) is pretty coarse in taste. It's a big plate of unremarkable penne, with a dark red sauce that has the intensity of tomato paste. There's a background of anchovies and some olives.

Our favourite dish is the calamari ($17/$23.50) - the scored calamari is charry from the grill which gives it a lovely beachy flavour. It's served without complication like the rest of the meal, on a pile of wild rocket with an odd astringent-tasting dressing.

We order two desserts ($11) - an OK tiramisu, and cannoli for which the tubes are fine, but you'd hope for a more refined chocolate sauce if that's what you're putting on top.

Service is friendly and adequate; dishes come pretty smartly to the table. On the wine list you'll find a bunch of wines that will add little to the bill, most of them by the glass at around $6 or $7, fully half what wine by the glass will cost you elsewhere. So you don't find high-end wines and there's that irritating tendency to offer several options by each maker - Two Italian Boys, Ladbroke, Grant Burge, with a Pankhurst merlot as the local option. There's a list of Italian wines, but only by the bottle and the cheap prices don't give massive confidence that we're in an exciting arena.

Santa Lucia feels like it needs more finesse in the food and surrounds, but we have come away with a feel for the charming Italian bonhomie that characterises this kind of neighbourhood restaurant and gives it a regular and loyal clientele.

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