State winner
Casa
EUROPEAN
399 Oxford St, Mount Hawthorn casa-casa-casa.com
Price guide $ Bookings Recommended
Wheelchair access Yes
Open Dinner Tue-Sat
Most wine bars don’t temperature-control their entire inventory of organically farmed vino naturale. Nor are they designed like a modernist Milanese display home or staffed with service pros that are more hosts than hotshots. But then, most wine bars aren’t Casa: a house of hospitality with a grasp of enoteca cool and restaurant craft that have made it one of Perth’s most essential addresses. The menu – a thorough examination of chef Paul Bentley’s diverse CV – is tough to pigeonhole, but all too easy to like. House-made duck and pork cotechino, plus clam tonnarelli slicked with a lurid jalapeño and preserved lemon sauce, are pure Italian brio: just add cavernous slabs of focaccia and know scarpetta happiness. (See also the lush smoked pil-pil riding shotgun with pearly grilled cod.) A show-stopping millefeuille of roasted pears and whipped burnt-honey cream is another show of flour power, as is Casa’s cosy new pizzeria next door.
de’sendent
AUSTRALIAN
0499 038
