We love Osteria Oggi – the pasta, the appetizers, the wine (oh God, the wine)… so imagine our excitement when we realised they are open all day and right down the road from our new office. That’s right, people of Adelaide, you can eat at Oggi from 11:30am until the late hours of the evening. Their kitchen doesn’t close down between lunch and dinner so it’s just constantly open for your stomach’s pleasure.
We’re always looking for a place to eat when we’ve left lunch a little too late and everything is already closed, so the fact that their kitchen doesn’t close down throughout the mid-afternoon is a lifesaver for us busy bees. With a menu traversing appetizers and salumi, through to pasta, wood-smoked slow-roasted meats and fish, distinctively re-interpreted desserts and of course, formaggio presented in its own trolley, we love going there for a mid-afternoon meeting with a co-worker or a client, or ordering a view tidbits from the menu using UberEats. While the crowd ebbs and flows throughout the afternoon, the atmosphere usually kicks in around 4pm, where you’ll see plenty of like-minded business people coming in for a crostini, cheese plater or salumi. 
Having enough on staff all day, they thought it was a big silly to close down and send everyone home between lunch and dinner, thinking ‘if we’re here all day, we may as well serve all day’. It’s just the type of venue it is, they always have same menu, but the specials rotate so frequently that they always have something they can make for you that may not be on the menu. With a real familial approach to dining, you’ll always find someone to chat to over a glass of Poggerino Chianti Classico.
Oggi pride themselves on their community-driven environment which is seen in their choice of settings. There’s the piazza, that we’ve mentioned before, where people gather to sit side by side. It’s true to the Italian philosophy that communal eating with friends and family is THE best way to experience food – sharing the heartiness of their homemade food, with the delight of familiar company. There’s their 20-metre formed concrete bar, where you’ll find many a soul sitting and drinking. It’s a great place to have a chat with the bartenders, and graze on some small dishes (our go to is the chargrill veal tongue with anchovies, tuna mayonnaise and fried capers, it’s a small dish that packs a punch!) If you’re looking for somewhere a big more intimate, they also have a private underground dining room perfect for corporate dinners or just general events for pasta-lovers. 
With pasta made fresh daily and a wine list to match, we don’t see why you wouldn’t pop in for a mid-arvo bite off their ‘pranzo veloce’ (a prompt 3-course shared lunch) or ‘lento’ (a leisurely 4-course lunch or dinner) menus. With 30+ gins, 45-50 Italian digestifs and plenty of delicious cocktails for those of you who don’t have to go back to work afterwards (insider tip: try their Negroni), it’s the ideal place to have a mid-afternoon snack, wine and chat.
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