Parcheggio cheekily translates to parking lot, which is where this restaurant is situated, outside a huge mall. 

The Oliver & Bonacini concepts focuses mainly on handmade house pasta, the menu rounded out by other scratch Italian favourites like a variety of bruschettas.

The modular 88-seat interior centred around 12 booths takes design cues from Italian sports cars, real car part details dotted throughout several breakout spaces.

Piccinin’s Nonna’s Salad ($16) sees a particular kind of very peppery, almost spicy locally grown arugula and Tuscan kale plated atop a creamy romano bean puree with a hit of lemon and heavy dusting of parmigiano-reggiano.

The story behind this dish is that Executive Chef Andrew Piccinin’s grandmother used to serve his grandfather a unique salad he loved made with one oddly delicious ingredient: cold jellified pork and bean soup.

Tagliatelle Bolognese ($21) sees paper-thin but still sturdy egg noodles smothered in a ragu of pork, beef, veal, a little tomato and a stock made with parmesan rinds, garlic and herbs, finished off with butter and cheese.

Noodles are cooked out with sauces in a pan here so a little starch from the pasta combines with the sauce and emulsifies with olive oil, resulting in a spot-on al dente texture.

Spaghetti Pomodoro ($19) is well executed in its simplicity, just nicely chewy noodles in a little tomato sauce with herbs, cheese and olive oil.

There’s actually a two-horsepower cheese grater in this restaurant that works away at wheels of reggiano to produce a specific parm particulate, more of a powder you can sprinkle that emulsifies into the pasta rather than flakes that dry out.

A whole branzino ($32) is butterfly fileted so it’s easy to eat, just a few microbones in certain spots. Snowy white flesh and crispy skin is subtly set off by a gremolata, a perky fennel salad and a little lemon.

A straight-up negroni ($12) makes for a classic Italian accompaniment to a classic Italian meal, made simply with Campari, gin and vermouth and garnished with an orange peel, the bitter flavours and scent of citrus refreshing alongside heavy comfort food.

There’s also a “Ten Layer Lasagna” on the menu here that’s actually never less than 14 layers, and is so labour intensive and popular that it’s not available for lunch and often sells out.

Parcheggio also has a patio, and shares a building with sister O&B project Beauty Barbecue.