Secolo Dining

You can instantly tell Secolo Dining isn’t the average CBD Italian joint. The custom-built concrete bars, the leather-backed chairs and the bespoke light fittings are good hints. Then there’s the Neapolitan pizza oven (the same one Da Mario uses), and, if you come at the right time, the production line of people making pasta.

The design is crisp, open and welcoming. One of the reasons its owners have kept it so bright and open is to fulfil the all-day-eating brief. In the morning, instead of bacon and eggs on toast, there’s a breakfast plate of prosciutto, Vanella burrata, poached egg and focaccia. There’s also an open sandwich slathered with nduja, charred broccolini and stracciatella, with two eggs on top and a scattering of crunchy almonds.

Later in the day it’s Southern Italian dishes: fastidiously traditional Neapolitan pizza from the wood-fired oven, homemade pastas and a trio of classic mains. From this category try the spanner crab, garlic butter and bottarga rigatoni, a dish popular near Naples. The other must is the porchetta focaccia, a flat pizza-like bread loaded with suckling pig, grilled eggplant, cos and mayo. Also: the immaculately arranged mix of cured salmon, orange, fennel, bottarga and Sardinian flat bread.

There’s a mix of Italian-focused wines, cocktails and a handful of mainly local beers.