DiWine

Bar Bar Food Booze Eat & Drink Italian Wine

Jackie McMillan
April 22, 2015

Working the Darlo Italian wine bar turf is newcomer DiWine. It’s tucked in between perennial favourites, Lucio Pizzeria and Phamish, in the lively Republic 2 courtyard. With time in the kitchen at Il Baretto, it should be no surprise that owner/chef Vittorio Esposito is making pasta in-house. It scrubs up particularly well as Strozzapreti with Swordfish ($26), which you might even be able to nab for just $25 with the wine of the week, if chef dubs it ‘pasta of the day’. For those more interested in the wine part of the equation, you’ll find a decent by-the-glass list with good descriptors, covering Italy, New Zealand and Australia. Better yet: snaffle a whole bottle for (mostly) less than fifty bucks. The 2012 Bertani Soave Sereole DOC ($11/$44) gives you a taste of the Italian seaside when taken with sweet, fleshy Figs ($10), prosciutto and Gorgonzola. Spot-on cooking keeps Mussels in Black Pepper Broth ($15) plump and briny, even when they’re physically small. And I’m not telling you anything new when I say buddy up those bivalves with beer. Sardinian Ichnusa ($7) is clean and well balanced, though artisanal Birra Gjulia TOZ ($14) from Friuli is more where I’m at. Finish with a straight-ahead Beef Tagliata ($26) – well-charred on the outside, and pleasantly pink within.