Milan-inspired Hutt Street bar Latteria will offer tasty hand-held snacks, a mystery menu and a cocktail you've never had before.

The first question we ask Nicola Pau, co-owner of Latteria, is how to pronounce the name of his new venue.

“Latteria [Latte-ria],” Nicola says with his Italian accent.

“People will be calling the venue in all different ways and we find it actually quite funny. You’re never going to hear myself or Luca [say] ‘hey, you said it wrong’.”

“You say it as you like — so if you say Latte-ria or La-te-ree-a, it’s all good.”

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Co-owners of Osteria Oggi, Nicola and Max O’Callaghan, have teamed up with Oggi staff member Luca Baioni and Rhys Nicholson of Press* Food and Wine, Orso and Sol Rooftop & Bar to open the bar.

Unlike its Pirie Street sibling, Latteria will be more cocktail-focused as Nicola says “it is not a restaurant to start with”.

“Let’s say if Oggi is a restaurant with drinks, Latteria is a cocktail bar with food,” Nicola says.

The main inspiration for opening up Latteria is from Nicola and Luca’s original home in Milan, and clocking off after work and entering the aperitivo hour.

“So you finish work, go to the bar, have a drink before you have dinner at home,” Nicola says.

“We come from a city where back in the day in every district used to have a latteria, which was the community spot.

“In my city people used to go [and] used to gravitate around these little shops that my mom used to go there to buy milk and buy a little grocery, I used to go there for aperitivo because they became little bars.

“What was funny for us it was like you take that concept and bring it to Hutt Street which is such a residential area and…thinking what is going to happen if you take a latteria from the past, and put it in 2024, not even in Milano, but in Adelaide.”

Food wise, the menu is split into parts: bar snacks, entrees to main dishes, and catering to lunchtime office workers.

“Let’s say some things is literally a few bites of stuff that you can eat and doesn’t require cutlery, which is something we really wanted to achieve,” Nicola says.

“And being able to almost stand up at the stool tables at the front, have a drink and mingle while you’re eating little things with your hands.”

Nicola alludes to cottoletta’s, pastas and desserts appearing on the menu, although he keeps his cards close to his chest about specifics.

We ask him to — at least — elaborate on the pasta choices and Nicola says they will be kept to a minimum on the Latteria menu.

“If you want to have a large amount of options within pasta, I’ve got another restaurant where you can go on Pirie Street,” Nicola laughs.

“Let’s say we try to keep the focus on other parts of the dining experience. We want to provide something a little different.

“As much as we obviously are going to have pasta options, that’s definitely not going to be what we actually want to push on the menu.”

The drinks are designed by Luca, and Nicola describes them as “pretty interesting”. He says they will be different to what people expect at other cocktail bars.

Nicola explains the ‘Breakfast in Milano’ cocktail as a “funny project” with a storied history.

“Now when you’re in Milano and you have breakfast, you don’t have bacon and eggs. You have a cappuccino and you have a croissant filled with apricot jam that you dip in the cappuccino,” Nicola says.

“[Luca] created a cocktail and it does taste like a cappuccino.

“We’re teaming up with The Sugar Man which is a few doors down. [Owner] Alex is giving us basically the offcuts of his excellent croissants.

“So he’s not throwing anything away, we’re using one of the best croissants you can have in Adelaide, and you basically have a beautiful product that’s going to be pretty interesting.”

The other cocktail Nicola is proud of is titled ‘The Best Cosmo Ever’.

“I don’t think I need to tell you more about that!” Nicola laughs.

The space used to be a bank and a “very fancy establishment, the TAB”. Nicola says the venue, which is designed by studio-gram, is “very comfy” and “very inviting”.

“Every little aspect has been created to create a dynamic experience,” Nicola says.

“The front of the bar, you basically have this more stand-up situation with the higher seats. Basically, walk in, have a drink at the bar, have a chat with the bartenders, and move through the side where we have the more conventional dining areas.

“And then once you move to the back, it has literally a lounge — think of the 80s, art deco, groovy area.

“But it’s basically part of the experience that we wanted to get: don’t come for a drink and then go, come for a drink and then stay for some food or if you’re coming for some food, then stay a drink.”

Latteria is located at 185 Hutt Street, Adelaide and is opening today.

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