This Freo restaurant ‘rewards serious wine drinkers’, and has an impeccable menu to match

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Since the America’s Cup in 1986-87, the local burghers of Fremantle have been proclaiming that Freo will be the next big thing.

Kiddies, you may be too young to remember this, but not too long ago Freo was a down at heel, grubby, hippie and crime-ridden city in decline.

Al fresco dining – now a hallmark of Fremantle – was verboten. Street fights were a regular occurrence for the testosterone-enriched, booze-fuelled and drug-addled locals. It was dreadful.

The America’s Cup was to have set the scene for a vast improvement. Many promises were made. Property developers salivated.

An improvement of sorts did occur and then just as quickly evaporated. At least you could eat on the street after that summer of sailing. The food scene was abysmal except for the Roma in High Street and the Capri, both good but very basic.

It took a while but four decades after the boat race, Fremantle has indeed hit its straps. The gentrification of a suburb can best be gauged by its restaurant and bar culture.

Others will disagree that food and booze is a litmus test for gentrification – I look forward to your comments – but Fremantle has left its drive-by shooting reputation behind it (yes, that happened back in the day when a South Terrace nightclub was strafed with bullets from a passing vehicle) and in the past few years has blossomed.

Some of its rubbish tourist restaurants on the so-called cappuccino strip still exist, but in recent times venues like Republic of Fremantle, The Old Synagogue, Gage Roads, The Jetty, Emily Taylor, Angel’s House, Nieuw Ruin, Bread in Common, Lions and Tigers and the National Hotel have catapulted the port city into a bona fide culinary destination.

If a greasy doner or a sweaty pasta is your jam, you can still find them in Freo, but for lovers of food, wine and a civilised experience the options are now plentiful.

The latest to join the band is Vin Populi, a stunning 150-180 seater at the western end of High Street which has elevated the Fremantle dining experience even higher. It opened last month.

The first glimpse of Vin Populi takes your breath away. It is beautiful, tasteful, pared-back and warm. You can’t stop looking at it.

Vin Populi is Italian as befits its site where the famed Roma restaurant plied its trade for generations. Every wall, even the top of the divider between the main room’s banquettes, is crammed with wine bottles.

The wine list is large and long and mostly Italian but with strong representation from local WA wine producers. There are expensive wines on the list and, unusually for a WA restaurant, the higher the price point the lower the mark-up.

This is to “reward serious wine drinkers,” according to co-owner and resident wine boffin Emma Ferguson.

Superb ingredients and skilled cookery turns even a plate of tomatoes into a dish to coo over.

Most of the wines on the list fall between $60 and $90. Ferguson and partner Dan Morris also own Balthazar restaurant in the city and Northbridge’s No Mafia.

We also like that Vin Populi has a naughty corner with an etched metal plate on the wall stating just that.

We reviewed it on day two and had it been less than good we would have walked away and returned after a few weeks. No need. It was very good.

A few antipasti were first cab off the rank. A platter of lonza was laid out beautifully like a plate of dinosaur scales (see picture). Lonza is pork loin, salt and cold air cured. It was superb with texture more like soft, glossy Iberian ham. Good shopping.

A little oblong of “farinata anchovy” was special. Farinata is a Ligurian crispy bread made with chickpea flour. It’s usually thin but this had the pleasing texture of stiff polenta. It was a knockout. A small two-bite morsel. Farinata base, whipped mascarpone lemon zest, chives and olive oil “cream” in the middle and a single anchovy fillet of good provenance on top. Happy days.

A small plate of tomatoes was just that: halved cherry and grape tomatoes of various shades coated with olive oil and garnished with basil leaves. It doesn’t get any simpler, which means there’s nowhere to hide. All three ingredients were top-notch and there was nothing suggesting it had been made ahead and was sitting the larder fridge waiting for an order. Spanking fresh and, importantly, not fridge-cold.

A dish simply called zucchini had equally minimalist preparation. Strips of zucchini were grilled and then marinated in olive oil, pepper and salt. It was served cold with fresh herbs.

Tagliatelle osso buco, was, as it sounds, wide ribbon pasta dressed with a braise of young beef or veal shanks amped up with the typical trifecta of aromatic vegetables, carrots, onions and celery and made piquant with tomato paste and passata. The fresh, house-made pasta was silky and al dente. Great dish. You couldn’t go weaker at the knees if you’d busted your ACL.

A thick slice of well salty porchetta managed both shatteringly crisp crackling on the outside and tender, sweet, moist meat in the middle. This doesn’t happen everyday. In fact, I rarely order porchetta because it is often abused by ordinary cookery. The belly had been rolled around sage leaves and black pepper before roasting. Props to Vin Populi’s kitchen crew.

There are no menus. You order off a blackboard. They are constantly receiving shipments of wine, so the booze section on the blackboard can change a few times a day depending on what the team wants to put on, keeping things dynamic and interesting.

And so it went, impeccable food, simply prepared and plated. It is, in many ways, the sort of food you’d find in the better trattorias of Italy’s regions away from the Michelin stars and the auteur chefs of Florence and Rome. Nothing at Vin Populi changes your life, but superb ingredients and skilled cookery turns even a plate of tomatoes into a dish to coo over.