Threecoins & Sons is a restaurant designed to comfort rather than challenge guests. Very little of the menu requires googling. Reservations are accepted. The restaurant also opens in the afternoon, making it an excellent early dinner option for the families that live in and around the Mount Lawley stretch of Beaufort Street. There’s even a telephone number you can call to speak with a real-life human who will answer questions and book you in if online booking platforms aren’t your thing.

Granted, none of this is groundbreaking, but in an era where casual food options and pop-ups seem to be gaining ground on Perth’s dining landscape, it’s nice to be reminded of the pleasures of a traditional restaurant. The above, of course, isn’t anything new to the Trequattrini family, owners of Threecoins & Sons. For close to a decade, they ran this space as Threecoins, a family-friendly neighbourhood restaurant with a reputation for sincere Italian cooking. Tonight, when the restaurant reopens as Threecoins & Sons, the family won’t be reinventing the wheel: they’re simply making it run smoother.

“Our goal is to give guests that feeling of an honest Italian restaurant, but bring the place to 2023 and show that it’s possible to do an affordable, friendly, easy restaurant with good-quality food,” says Frank Trequattrini, the restaurant’s co-head chef.

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Although the filial suffix is the most obvious change to the OG Threecoins, the Trequattrinis could have run with any number of other names. Threecoins & A Smart New Dining Room – a nod to the restaurant’s cream-coloured aggregate flooring and glossy red-brown-white tiling – is one option, while Threecoins & The Born-Again Courtyard also would have worked. I also wonder if Threecoins & A Drinks List For Everyone made the shortlist for new restaurant names, although I’m not sure if the name would have adequately communicated the sharply priced wine menu’s split between blue-chip styles and the wilder, more rogue cuvees you’d expect to find at Testun, the family’s wilder, bravado-filled osteria a few doors up Beaufort Street. (In potentially disappointing news for Threecoins regulars, the restaurant no longer allows BYO, but the offer of value-packed house wine – $38 for a one-litre carafe! – should help soften that blow.)

Finally there’s the menu, a round-up of Italian favourites that should be instantly recognisable to anyone that’s ever eaten in a restaurant set with a gingham tablecloth. But while the dishes might be well-known, the kitchen is committed to cooking these classics with plenty of care and very few shortcuts.

“Familiar doesn’t need to be stale,” says Christopher Caravella, co-head chef between Threecoins & Sons and Testun. “We want to retain that sense of conviviality that people associate with Italian restaurants and didn’t want to alienate the existing clientele that Threecoins had before. These are all things that we love to eat and know that we can do well. There’s a balance of everything for everyone.”

House-made is a recurring theme. Giant plastic tubs full of house giardiniera and olives sit on the kitchen bench. Stockpots bubble away on the burner. A heavy-duty pasta extruder makes the good stuff for both Threecoins and Testun with Threecoins’ opening menu of five house-made pastas (long and short eggless pastas, an egg pasta, a filled pasta, a ricotta gnocchi) covering plenty of pasta ground. Vitello tonnato, burrata with caponata and seafood fritto misto feature among the snacks; steak, market fish and plates of lamb chops hot off the grill (“scottadito”, Italian for “burned fingers”) make up the mains.

In addition to the usual ordering categories – antipasti, pasta, secondi, contorni – the menu also features a delicatessen section heavy with salumi and formaggio, plus a section dedicated to pinsa, Rome’s famous crisp, cloud-like flatbread that replaces Threecoins’ original woodfired pizza offering. (The secret, say the kitchen, is a decent ferment plus using finely milled semolina flour throughout the pinsa’s cooking process.) The pinsas come in six variants ranging from a margherita to a white-based Hawaiian riff featuring mortadella and a pineapple salsa.

Initially, the 120-person restaurant will only open for five dinner services as both the Trequattrinis and guests get their heads around how Threecoins 2.0 will run. In future, the plan will be to reintroduce takeaway and lunch services. But for now, the aim is to pick up where the original Threecoins left off.

“We hope people feel comfortable coming here for special occasions as well as those nights when they don’t feel like cooking,” says Katia Taschetti, restaurant manager of both Threecoins and Testun. “It’s not posh or pretentious, but approachable, welcoming and accommodating and makes you feel at home.”

Threecoins & Sons
2/776 Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley
(08) 9271 6033

Hours:
Tue to Sat 5pm–11pm

threecoins.com.au
@threecoins.sons