SEVERINO, South Fremantle:

If you think you know Italian food, think again, because food in Italy is as varied as the country and its people.

South Fremantle’s legendary Severino pays homage to it all, from the north and Tuscany to Rome, Naples and Sicily in the south. In this regard, Severino can lay claim to being a true “Italian” restaurant.

New management at Severino, a South Fremantle institution for more than 20 years, has created a menu that captures Italy’s “hidden, authentic flavours”.

These are not the dishes you’ll find in tourist traps: instead, they promise a culinary experience unavailable anywhere else in Australia.

You’d have to fly 18 hours and take bumpy bus rides to half-forgotten villages to even come close.

Tender baby goat, woodfired pizza, steak, mixed seafood, pasta, scaloppine, parmigiana and much more, including home-made gelato. These deceptively simple, authentic dishes are prepared with care and executed with aplomb, using only the best ingredients.

A criticism of Italian restaurants abroad is they can be time capsules: as cuisine in the home country moves forward, menus overseas remain stubbornly rooted in the past, becoming kitsch windows to how things used to be.

Not at Severino, where the latest trends in Italian cooking are studied and applied. Even that most traditional dish, woodfired pizza, has new, health conscious trends applied, with exciting new toppings on offer.

With three rooms and no hire charge, Severino has long-specialised in providing functions to remember, whether they’re office parties, cocktails, wedding receptions, religious celebrations or Christmas parties (bookings open now), they’re all given first-class treatment, with catering available from finger food to banquets.

Severino is now open for breakfast and lunch 7.30am to 3pm Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and is open for dinner every evening from 5pm till late.

Severino Garden Restaurant & Pizzeria
388 South Tce, South Fremantle
9335 1366
http://www.severino.com.au