It’s one of Brisbane’s classic restaurants. But is it still any good?

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The email hit my inbox in September last year. 1889 Enoteca was turning 15 years old. Would we like to write about it?

Sure, I responded. What were they doing to celebrate?

As it turned out, nothing. No lunch series. No cool collab with a guest chef. No special menus. Nada.

Owners Dan Clark and Manny Sakellarakis’ rationale: we don’t feel we need to do anything. 1889 Enoteca had spent 15 years at or near the top of the Brisbane dining pile. It had survived the GFC and the pandemic and the end of 457 visas and whatever else, and still it filled with diners most nights of the week. That should be enough.

Clark and Sakellarakis didn’t get their story but, in a sense, they were right.

Enoteca has never consciously fought for Brisbane diner mind share. It’s never been the hippest or the most glamorous restaurant in town. While others live or die by the next event or Swiss-precision piece of social media, Enoteca takes it table by table, night by night – a simple love letter to Roman food.

Just as diners have continued to come, so too has the semiregular plaudit – most notably, a couple of nods from Gambero Rosso, the Italian magazine regarded as that country’s authority on food and wine. For 2022 it named 1889 Enoteca among the top Italian restaurants in the world because of its 400-bottle, biodynamic and organic-driven wine list.

One of the best Italian restaurants in the world. In Brisbane. Who knew?

Still, this city isn’t short of good Italian spots these days – particularly after our Covid-driven obsession for elevated comfort food. There’s everything from other classics such as Tartufo and Beccofino, to the glitz and colour of Bianca and Sasso Italiano, to the occasion-dining of Otto, and then more suburban-flavoured joints such as Mosconi.

With all these options competing for your dosh, should Enoteca still rank among Brisbane’s most cherished diners?

The restaurant itself, at least, remains one of the prettiest in town.

1889 Enoteca is slotted into the ground floor of the old Taylor–Heaslop Building on Logan Road. Walk through the ancient swing door and you’re in that same low-lit environment of timber and marble and exposed brick, with the line of booths down one side of the venue (although the boxy velvet originals have been replaced by curved leather numbers). This heritage-listed space was a rare find in Brisbane back in 2008, and 16 years later it feels more precious than ever.

Our table is outside, which, despite the summer humidity, isn’t a bad place to be if you want to talk unencumbered; as iconic as Enoteca’s dining room is, its hard surfaces mean conversations can sometimes carry.

One of the best Italian restaurants in the world. In Brisbane. Who knew?

The restaurant’s menu is a standard split into antipasti, primi, pasta, secondi, contorni and dolci. There’s just a few dishes in each section, and a clutch of pastas is available either as entree or main. It’s such a well-balanced and effortlessly navigable menu, and I know one local who has at least a couple of pre-set moves from entree to dessert.

We start with cacio e pepe and a vitello tonnato.

Enoteca’s cacio e pepe is more or less faultless. The bronze-cut spaghetti is robust and textured enough to capture the sauce, the 24-month pecorino Romano DOP cut with a fresh pecorino to take the edge off the salt. It’s finished with a spray of extra cheese and a brush of pepper and lasts all of 10 seconds on the plate.

The vitello tonnato (one of the few Enoteca dishes that isn’t Roman in origin) is equally good, seared and sous-vide Northern Rivers veal and velvety tuna mayonnaise a soothing antidote to the sweltering weather. It’s tempting to crow on about the simplicity of longtime Enoteca chef Matthew Stubbing’s cooking, but with this dish the joy is in the detail – the capers, olives and in particular flecks of grilled zucchini – tiny elements that make the dish sing.

Mains are about the classics.

Enoteca’s gnocchi is by now one of the city’s most iconic dishes, and what lands in front of us suggests that won’t change any time soon: supple, fluffy pillows of pasta in a sleek parmesan cream, studded with truffle tapenade and a delightfully fatty pork-and-fennel sausage. It’s luscious, divine comfort food of the highest order.

Not quite a match is a saltimbocca alla Romana. Again, the detail delights here – the piquant saltiness of the prosciutto di Parma and the vignarola’s peas and broadbeans, along with the acid of the artichoke. But the veal is cooked just a touch too medium well for my liking (although, admittedly, your mileage may vary).

Doing justice to Enoteca’s storied wine list on a Nine purchase card is a fool’s errand, but we give it a shot anyway.

My Marco Carpineti Capolemole Bianco is a fresh, floral drop made from bellone (a Lazian variety similar to chablis) and a great match with the subtle complexity of the vitello tonnato, and a San Michele soave classico is a refined step up from the more rudimentary examples of the Veronese wine we have floating around this country. For mains, I switch to a Barbacan Rosato chiavennasca (nebbiolo) from Valtellina. Unfined and unfiltered, its tamarind-like finish is a lovely accompaniment for the saltimbocca.

Enoteca’s dedication to Roman hospitality extends to its portion sizes, meaning we can barely comprehend sweets. But a local strawberry semifreddo is Stubbing’s uncomplicated take on an Ekka strawberry sundae and a pleasingly mild way to clock off.

It also underlines how, as much as Enoteca looks to capture Rome, the restaurant has also come to reflect Brisbane. Just as it has leant more and more into its Roman cuisine, so too has local diners’ understanding of Italian food improved in fidelity.

Sure, Enoteca could be more innovative, but that’s ultimately not what this restaurant’s about. It’s about being consistent. Consistency, above everything else, Clark will tell you, is what makes a good dining experience, and 1889 Enoteca is as brilliantly consistent as they come.