If Grossi Florentino upstairs calls for Canali suits and Ferragamo heels, Grossi Grill is a chinos-and-blazer kind of place.

A window seat at this buzzing Italian diner is ideal for doing lunch and doing deals, for flirting and carousing and pulling the cork on that cheeky Montepulciano you always wanted to try.

Then there’s Grossi Grill’s impressive Tuscan-focussed fare. Head chef Mario Di Natale commands an open kitchen equipped with a Josper oven and Asado grill. Both impart deep, charry flavour to everything they touch – spears of asparagus and cos lettuce leaves through to capsicum and slabs of bistecca (steak).

Di Natale’s whole baby snapper served with broccoli rabe comes blistered to perfection, its pearly meat falling off the bone, while Cape Grim Angus porterhouse acquires a seriously good heat-scorched crust.

It’s not all grill-work. Guy Grossi’s deft waitstaff can have you lapping up pickled tongue with salsa verde, twirling a fork into the prawn taglierini and leapfrogging through well-kept Euro cheeses. But the main game here is ‘la griglia’.

“The grill is a truly an extension of the Italian kitchen’s soul,’’ Grossi likes to say.

True. It can also be a lot of fun and utterly delicious.

Must-eat dish: Baby snapper, cime di rapa
Instagram: @grossiflorentino