There was a time when food courts were considered the B-grade low-budget horror movies of the restaurant world. Radioactive sludge and flying fried flesh help put the gore in gourmet. Although some still are, for the most part the zombie food court apocalypse is over.

Our culinary evolution over the last decade has not only delivered world-class establishments at the pointy end, it’s also forced the hand of those delivering trays of cheap eats in our malls and halls. So much so, food and retail precincts are acquiring tenants that rival the restaurant revolution going on in our suburbs.

Take Italian-inspired Assembly Restaurant and Pizza Bar for instance. It’s an offshoot of the successful Assembly Bar, housed across the way in the very same Regent Place indoor retail and food strip, just off Kent Street.

Italian cuisine has become such a vital ingredient in Australian cuisine that some would argue it’s the 22nd region of Italy.

After all, variations of cappuccino and spaghetti Bolognese are practically staples of our diet.

But Assembly has its head above most with well-executed food that reminds you how good Cucina Italiana is.

It’s a simple, yet warmly space. White tiles, wood panels and a feature wall staked with the wood that fuels the wood-fire pizza oven.

Dine by candle light in the restaurant proper at tables fashioned from recycled Tasmanian timber, or pull up a high stool around the bar and watch the flavour discs jump into the fire.

The service is confident, cheeky, but takes itself seriously with that Italian swagger. And the food, thanks to two talented chefs, has a real strut too.

Firstly, Naples-born pizza chef Antonio Buonomo has the magic touch when it comes to kneading dough. His is Naples-style – that is light, fluffy, malleable with a charred bottom and minimal ingredients.

They’d rival those tossed at Via Napoli and Napoli nel Cuore for the best variants in Sin city.

We opt for the pizza litmus test – Margarita. Rich, deep tomato base, fresh basil and Mozzarella Fior di Latte with a touch of parmesan. Hang on, for a moment I thought I was on the banks of the Gulf of Naples. Although the food to follow is great, it’s clearly the hero of this establishment.

In the kitchen proper, former Da Orazio Pizza and Porchetta chef Nick Pulcher takes diners through the glorious food layers of the lady’s boot. Think Antipasto such as Burrata or battered zucchini flowers, to simple salads, pastas and secondi (mains); it’s packed with crowd pleasers.

Hand-made tagliatelle lovingly licks a wobbly 8-hour slow-roasted oxtail ragu. Parmesan crowns it prince of pleasing pastas. Meanwhile, pretty pink Wild Tasmanian trout is baked in paper with bedfellows tomato, kalamata, capers and Spanish onion.

A simple single serve of tiramisu relies on a heavy hand of mascarpone and slivers of strawberry to send you home sated. Assembly Restaurant puts paid to the scary movies of our food court past.