Dismissed for too long as mundane Italian peasant food, the meatball, when ­assembled properly, is a glorious creation. The meatball has been delightfully re-­engineered recently by chefs of the calibre of Nigella Lawson, Donna Hay, Gordon Ramsay and Yotam Ottolenghi.

You must go to Scandinavia to see the mighty meatball in all its glory. Swedes especially are besotted with the meatball, as I discovered recently at The Diplomat, my preferred hotel on the Strandvagen in Stockholm.

There, bright young people jostled with businessmen and women for seats at T/Bar, the hotel restaurant that spills out on to the footpath overlooking the water. The meatballs are the key attraction, said to be among Europe’s finest.

So I was delighted meatballs were on the menu when I dined with a lawyer friend at Alimentari Bar e Trattoria in the Brisbane CBD.

Classical Italian meatballs in Napoli sauce ($20) served on spaghetti were embellished in a confetti of parmesan and flat-leaf parsley. They were blackboard specials, with crispy skinned barramundi and caponata, the Sicilian sweet and sour aubergine dish ($27), and zuppa di pesce ($16).

I asked for entree-size meatballs, only to be told it was not available as they only came six at a time. There was much consternation and discussion in the kitchen before my order was approved. Just how difficult is it to divide six by two, I wondered?

They were delicious. The walnut-size meatballs were conspicuously of pork and veal. But there was another element. The chef told me some chicken meat had been added to the mix. The pigs, the calves and the chickens did not die in vain. The accompanying tomato sauce did not flood the spaghetti but coated it judiciously. It was a well-judged plate of food all around.

Alimentari seems as culturally Italian as you can get without going there. There are pasta and risotto dishes, I discovered on subsequent visits.

The restaurant, predominantly a luncheon venue, seems to be a hangout for the local Italian community and the sweet music of the Italian language floats in the air. There is an informal cafe at the front with a faux lounge room. The serious peasant food is served in the dark dining room up the back.

An idiosyncratic wine list offers some juicy Italian treats such as Artizgiano primitivo from Puglia and Rubiolo Montepulciano d’Abruzzo available by the botte or the glass. We sampled both. Delicious.

This review originally appeared on couriermail.com.au.