Pinotta

ALL hail the zucchini. Joyful herald of spring, their cheerful yellow flowers appearing on menus like the promise of renewal itself. How sad the vegetable's inevitable decline: at season's end nothing more than garden carp that acquaintances in central Victoria leave in midnight sorties on each other's doorsteps - part joke, part desperation to be rid of the things.

Zucchini flowers follow a less dramatic yet similar trajectory. In a month, maybe two, their ubiquity will see them follow the economic rule of diminishing returns to diners and restaurateurs alike. They'll be sticking around until late autumn thanks to the benefits of global warming, the practicalities of polytunnels and the evils of airfreight. But they're never better than right now, when I'm loving them stuffed with smoked river trout or smooth ricotta, fried in a light batter and finished with nothing but a squeeze of lemon at Pinotta, a simple Italian bistro doing a lot of things right in the village heartland of Fitzroy North.

It's a neighbourhood that could do with more good bistros. The space that houses Pinotta was formerly run by people whose ''customers'' regularly emailed Epicure to enthuse about the wonders of the transcontinental menu. I remember the line: ''It's just like being a child in a candy store, being able to taste every colour of the rainbow.''

Chef Andy Logue and his front-of-house business partner, Heidi Modra, have ditched the widescreen focus for a close-up on Italy, which makes sense considering Logue was head chef at The Italian. His menu is composed of seasonal ingredients done in a rustic Italian style and presented without over-adornment. Exactly as it should be. Modra's wine list comes to the party with a tight collection drawn from all over, as comfortable in the boutique vineyards of France and Italy as it is cherry-picking its way around Australia. It's rare to see so much worthy variety packed into a meagre 14 whites and 15 reds.

You could say Pinotta is a very lo-fi kind of place, from the turntable spinning Frank Sinatra and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, the terrazzo-tiled floor, wooden bar and exposed brickwork.

There's a lot of integrity of display - yes, a kind of shorthand for limited budget, and no expensive lighting pendants or design concepts. The feel is casual and easy, although the starched table linen and candlelight make it a little more special. But this is elemental dining where a comfortable room is enough and the food doesn't try to over-impress and, therefore, does impress with its lack of artifice.

Consider something as ubiquitous as the beef carpaccio, which at Pinotta has an attraction beyond its everywhere status. Cut thicker than the norm, the beef is soft but textured, the flavour not bulldozed by the lusty combination of cornichons, capers and shaved parmesan doused in a fruity, vibrant yellow olive oil. It's enough to bring the apostate back to the fold.

Logue makes his own pasta, which makes it the perfect argument to try two. Gnocchi gorgonzola has a bad name thanks to its terminal abuse at every red-checked-tablecloth bistro in town but Logue puts the dish back on the path to righteousness. His rustic presentation immediately soothes fears: splayed flat on a white plate, the soft little dumplings are blanketed in a thick, not-too-sharp sauce coloured from a finish under the grill. It's a boon to the gnocchi cognoscenti.

Then there's the linguini, stained black with squid ink, supple and slippery. Combined with picked blue swimmer crab in a sauce that owes half its merits to oil and half to tomato with just a touch of chilli, it really captures the briny essence of what such a dish should be.

A few things impressed less. The salmon carpaccio, which came with spokes of white anchovy radiating from the centre, was just a little ho-hum. A similar response greeted a main of quail, with the tricky work of taking out all those tiny little bones performed by the kitchen and the dismembered bits of bird - whole sage leaves stuffed under the skin - doing a conga line across a mound of ratatouille. Fine, but …

It also needs to be said that a restaurant such as this relies to a greater extent than its flashier competition on the comfort of diners. The larger back dining room on a busy weeknight - complete with what looked like quite a number of surprise walk-ins - began to feel like the land that time forgot. Arm waving doesn't beget the sense of immeasurable wellbeing that ought to accompany diners into the night.

Desserts scrawled on the gilt-edged mirror mostly bear the hallmarks of the short-handed kitchen and require little work in serving. No crime in that. There's panna cotta, naturally enough, which comes in a chilled glass but doesn't make the most of its confinement by going easy on the gelatin; the consistency is thick and rubbery rather than fine and silky. Mango and passionfruit on top provide an early summer consolation but you've got to do a bit better with the dessert that carpet-bombed Melbourne. Another classic that works better without bowling anyone over is the lemon tart, the mouth-puckering curd treading a nice line between sweet and sour.

It's good to encounter a place such as this at the tail end of another year, having watched trends do their inevitable waxing and waning.

Pinotta is a reminder that amid all the hoopla there's always a place for the modest and the simple. Done well, it's something that never goes out of style.

Food Italian

Where 32 Best Street, Fitzroy North

Phone 9481 3393

Cost Typical entree, $20; main, $33; dessert $12

Licensed

Wine list A tight, savvy collection with plenty of interest packed into its short form

We drank Seresin sauvignon blanc (Marlborough, NZ) $10/$41

Owners Andy Logue and Heidi Modra

Chef Andy Logue

Vegetarian One pasta

Dietary Gluten-free available

Noise Reaches challenging with a full room

Wheelchairs No

Outdoors Yes

Value Good

Service Overstretched

Parking Street

Web www.pinotta.com

Cards V MC Eftpos

Hours Wed-Fri, noon-3pm, 6pm-late; Sat-Sun, 9.30am-late