Located on sleepy High Street, just minutes from Armadale station is an endearing Italian joint that hasn’t sacrificed authenticity for South-Side palettes. Since 2017, Rina’s has been co-owned by longtime friends Danny Natoli (formerly Head Chef at Neptune) and Adrian Li (formerly Tokyo Tina and Saigon Sally). The pair have a well-established working history and copacetic dynamic. Having boldly opened the CBD’s La Madonna in 2021, steering the business through “unprecedented times”.
The boys have curated a friendly, warm environment. Walls are decorated with postcards and polaroids, with the evening’s drinks dashed casually across Sopranos-style mirrors. The overall atmosphere is one of comforting nostalgia - complete with soft opera and candlelit tables. What runs the risk of contrivance instead feels like a heartfelt love letter to Southern Italy.
There is no menu at Rina’s. After seating us, Danny declares we will be having the “Mangiare menu” (dietary requirements permitting), consisting of five courses that rotate regularly.
Dishes come out at a leisurely pace, building pleasant anticipation as you relinquish control and sip on a glass of Frappato (or four). We start with the cold antipasti, which with its sticky, rich caponata, Mt Etna olive oil and gloriously melty culatello transports you to Sicily. Hot antipasti follows - with classic crowd-pleaser, mushroom arancini. Natoli and Li have added an East meets West twist with pickled enoki, which speaks to the culinary backgrounds of both chefs. The acidity adds a much appreciated sour note to break through the umami richness.
It would be unpatriotic not to have a pasta dish. Natoli’s rendition of traditional spaghetti is for want of a better word, a true banger. With a rich tomato sauce, chewy guanciale and “a little bit o’ chilli and lemon”, this dish is brimming with complex, but well-balanced flavours that leave your belly screaming for more. It’s spaghetti at its visceral, moreish best. Danny, the ever-attentive host, sweeps in with homemade focaccia at the critical sauce-mopping stage.
Our dining experience wraps with a non-pejoratively “homey” confit duck with lentils, followed by one of the finest semi-fredos this side of the hemisphere. Thirst quenchers during the evening are proudly Southern Italian with a pomelo gin negroni and glass after glass of a delightfully juicy Mt Etna Nerello Mascalese. Rebelling against the south-side status quo Danny conspiratorially claims “No Chablis, Chardonnay or Sauv Blanc”.
Rina’s is the kind of staple, all-occasions venue you’ll want to visit again and again (and then once more). The intimate dining space seats just 14 with an area out the back for larger groups, so make a booking to ensure you do not miss out.