Coppa Spuntino Bar & Restaurant

For decades CBD bars have served up lacklustre snacks, or restaurants offered a token cocktail list, but step right up hungry, thirsty people because finally food and drink are given equal billing under a single roof.  

The liquid side of this delicate balancing act is managed with generous hospitality at Coppa by drinks doyen Bonnie Shearston, abetted by a clever list, while the kitchen rights the scales with sublime grazing and sharing dishes.

Dull old bruschetta is radically made over with discs of translucent radish over tissue-thin lardo draped on wood-fired bread.

A pair of calamari hoods are stuffed with chorizo and flash-charred, while plump, sweet glazed Japanese diver scallops atop white bean puree are cooked to the very nanosecond of translucent perfection.

A litmus test wood-fired margherita pizza is beauty in simplicity.

Italian sweets can often inspire a take or it leave it response but in this case, whether a single, crisp-shelled ricotta-filled cannoli or a just-set rosemary panna cotta, definitely take it.

Vibe Roman holiday

Pro tip  Taste test your way through the history of the Negroni

Drinks Classic cocktails and an interestingly off-piste wine list