Becco

This Italian restaurant opened in December 1996 on Crossley Street, and has maintained a reputation for serving sturdy, classic Italian food in a smart, minimal room. The bar, where the signature cocktail, the Becco Macchiato, was devised, has a short menu of snacks; a simple plate of proscuitto and grissini, silver whiting ceviche crostini or perhaps the messy but moreish crispy quail with chilli and lemon.

Move through to one of the cosseted booths in the dining room for beef carpaccio or tender calamari with jalapeno aioli, or the roast duck with radicchio, grappa sauce. The food isn’t reinventing any wheels but it doesn’t need to. Becco is a beacon of good Italian food, focusing on the country as a whole rather than any particular region. And it does it well. Its longevity is testament to that.

Becco is open on Mondays in November and December.