Sure, you could give such dishes as the chicken liver spedini a miss if offal’s not your thing, but you’d be missing out on gloriously pink and creamy and tangy livers teamed with thick-cut bacon, sage and charred oily cubes of bread, that makes for a rich, robustly satisfying starter. Or you could skip the plate of tongue, but it would be your loss. Big cubes of crisp-fried meat, crunchy on the outside, soft yielding richness inside, are tossed through roasted kipfler quarters and endive for sharp bursts of bitter. A vibrant salsa verde drizzled over the top completes a deliciously rustic dish that seems almost out of place up this legal eagle end of town in this smart space that enjoys views across the Supreme Court dome.

The simple, pan-regional menu is filled with home-style classics cooked with class – as equally accommodating to a quick bowl of pasta (great gnocchi tossed through a rich braised oxtail ragu, say, or an eggy, cheesy carbonara) as it is a two bottles of Barolo-long lunch.

Rosa follows the “excellent produce treated with respect” philosophy that informs the best of Italian cooking, as evident in little cauliflower fritters to start that sing when swiped through a bright basil ailoi, as in the masterful daily changing tart, its filling dictated by the seasons – perhaps quince, perhaps pear and almond -to end. Simple and delicious has always been Rosa’s way and this canteen for the court class prosecutes that case most elegantly.

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