La Vespa, Charlestown

Where: Ground floor, Landmark Building, 215-217 Pacific Highway, Charlestown

Prices: Primi (starters), $12 to $21; Pasta and risotto, $18 and $26 (starter and main size); secondi (mains), $32 to $36 per person; contorni (sides) $7; dolce (dessert), $12 to $14; fromaggio (cheese platter), $22 for two

Chef: Guy Parkinson

Wines: Small but well-chosen list of Hunter, other Australian and Italian wines

Hours: Breakfast and coffee, 8am-10.30am, Monday to Friday; lunch, noon-2pm, Tuesday to Friday; dinner, 6pm-9pm, Thursday to Saturday; bar, 6pm until late, Thursday to Saturday

Bookings: 4943 1660

Bottom line: Entrée, main, dessert about $130 for two without drinks

Simple. Honest. Italian. These words head the menu and the home page on their website and sum up perfectly what this new place in Charlestown is all about.

You will look in vain for chicken schnitzel but find a classic bistecca alla Fiorentina, double-roasted pork belly, whole market fish or slow-cooked lamb shoulder. You won't find spag bol; instead there's hand-rolled gnocchi, risotto, fresh rag pasta with braised rabbit, or penne with prawns, zucchini, chilli and saffron. But don't expect to find exactly the same dishes next time you visit; the menu changes according to the season and produce availability. It's sensibly brief; just three starters and four mains, a couple of specials and the four selections of pasta, gnocchi and risotto available as starter or main.

Service is friendly, efficient and informative. We are told the bistecca takes 45 minutes. That's OK; by the time we eat our starters there won't be much of a wait.

Pippies with pasta is one of the specials. The pasta is succulent, house-made fettuccine that has been tumbled with fragrant chilli flakes and basil, ready for the plump shellfish just peeping from their shell. A light emulsion of shellfish juice and olive oil is all the sauce it needs.

Spoon-tender, grilled calamari team perfectly with a ragu of white beans, which gets a flavour boost from slivers of salty pancetta, bitter radicchio, sweet fresh tomato and specks of fiery chilli flakes.

I can't wait to try the bistecca alla Fiorentina, a dish that epitomises all that's good in Tuscan food and relies on the quality of the raw ingredients. Fortunately I have someone to share it with as this is a dish for two. And there's no compromise in the cooking; rare or not at all! A one-kilogram dry aged T-bone comes beautifully rested and already carved on its own board. It needs no condiments but a wedge of lemon and maybe some sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Baby potatoes roasted with rosemary and sea salt, more of that white bean salad, plus a simple salad of rocket leaves, shaved fennel and fresh parmesan bathed in extra virgin olive oil arrive at the same time, each in their own bowl. The meat is full of flavour and yields easily to the knife, and you will be forgiven if you can't resist picking up the T-bone to prise off every last morsel.

Desserts sound too good to pass up. Panna cotta tempts because it comes with scorched figs, zabaglione and truffled honey and the chocolate pudding with its molten centre and pistachio gelato looks good on another table. But a reviewer has to try a dessert and, under the assumption that anything with lemon has to be light, we order the caramelised lemon tart - and two forks.

A rectangular slice of crisp pastry filled with creamy, lemony custard and finished with a crisp brulee crust comes with a perfect quenelle of lemon thyme-infused mascarpone. A truly inspired combination.

A little bit of Tuscany in Charlestown? It's been a long time coming but worth the wait.