Piccolo

You're walking up Perth Road towards the West End and Piccolo sits there doing exactly what it should: feeding people proper Italian food without pretension. The room's warm and unpretentious, the kind of place where locals actually eat rather than somewhere that exists for Instagram. They take their pasta seriously—made fresh, sauced properly, no faffing about—and the wood-fired oven turns out decent pizzas that don't try to be anything other than what they are. It's the sort of neighbourhood restaurant that makes you realise how many places get Italian food wrong by overthinking it.