Napier Quarter

Fitzroy’s backstreet baby is a small stunner, morning noon and night

OCCUPYING A CHARACTERDRENCHED bluestone on a Fitzroy corner, Napier Quarter is a dining-world unicorn – the perfect local. Perhaps we could even throw a ticker-tape parade in its honour for satisfying all dining and drinking whims from early morning to late at night. It has been here a while (since 2016, to be exact), so why is it only now being anointed our best casual diner? After spending a few years elsewhere, its launch chef, Eileen Horsnell, has returned and taken it A-league. She’s come packing breakfasts of distinction (a special shout-out to the bottargasprinkled boiled eggs with rye toast and dill butter, the ultimate incarnation of eggs and soldiers). And once the sun is over the yardarm, her exacting eye for wine-friendly food that pushes the envelope comes into its own. One of our favourite pasta dishes of the year (certainly the one that Instagrams the best), the housemade pappardelle lolls about in the wicked company of Parmigiano-reggiano and thyme with a golden egg yolk cracked into its nest-like centre. Cacio e pepe, you’ve been served. What you get here is the food equivalent of three chords and the truth. Nettle soup that’s all liquid velvet perfection. Sardines on an agrodolce Mediterranean holiday. Veg dishes that are more than the sum of their parts. The blackboard wine list feels like a living thing, an ever-changing beast of lo-fi charms representing what its owners like to drink. Trust them – they have great taste. Ò359 Napier St, Fitzroy 3065. 03 9416 0666. napierquarter.com.au. Sun-thu 8am-10pm; Fri, Sat 8am-11pm.