Panama Dining Room

IN THESE days when "incidental exercise" is all the rage, it's nice to know how many good things are sitting there waiting for you at the top of a flight of stairs. There's Cookie, and Camillo Ippoliti's new baby, Toff in Town. There's the loucheness of Madame Brussels, the leathery cosseting of the Supper Club or the crowded family atmosphere of the Italian Waiter's Club.

You will also need to climb two long, narrow flights to the Panama Dining Room, Fitzroy's popular bar-cum-restaurant that has been open for about 16 months. There may have been an armchair on the landing, but I could have been hallucinating from lack of oxygen by then.

So, unless you're an iron man, take the climb easily, because this is the sort of place you'll want to stride into confidently rather than appearing with the staggers, clutching the door jamb and demanding yak butter tea for your altitude sickness.

Panama Dining Room is part New York loft, part Amsterdam hash house and largely Smith Street with a retro reclamation aesthetic that usually comes when style meets budgetary necessity. It's a magnificent space, though - cavernous with huge, arched windows through which the city skyline shimmers and winks. Across the room is a long bar and usually a DJ. Between them ranks of low, comfortable seating and a couple of high benches around a pool table.

It seems almost obligatory to start with a drink at the bar - perhaps a fresh pomegranate margarita or a manzanilla sherry with some oysters. Maybe an imported bottle of Budvar or Guinness. France, Portugal and Italy all represented on the wine list, although if you are into cult wines you'll go no further than the 2001 Domaine A cabernet sauvignon from Tassie at $74 a bottle. The rest of us will be happy with a bottle of Hochkirch riesling for $29 or the Corowa 1902 sangiovese for $33, even if the dollar mark-up on these is roughly the same as on the Domaine A!

Then move to the moodily lit dining room with its solid wooden tables and pot plants to pick at almonds roasted with smoked paprika, or some marinated olives, while you suss out the menu. With Catriona (ex Chez Phat) Freeman's departure to tour Europe, offsider Dianne Kerry who used to be the head chef at The Undertaker, is soon to take over.

Mains are hearty, honest food, perfect for the season and priced under $20. Coq au vin with steamed kipflers, T-bone with mushies and a horseradish creme fraiche or big, suckable knuckles of rich oxtail with cavalo nero. For something lighter there's a classic vitello tonnato, pan-fried garfish or seared duck livers with "boudin blanc" and witlof and apple salad.

Vegetarians get to pick between blue-cheese shortbread with a grape salad, a tile of taleggio-baked polenta with zucchini and the sweet burst of the occasional currant or splash of balsamic, and free-range omelets.

Desserts are limited but definitely a highlight, whether it's a pneumatic orange blossom and yoghurt pannacotta with a date and orange salad, a lime parfait or chocolate eclairs; perhaps with something sticky from the bar.