When Ashley-Maree Kent moved to Brisbane with the intent of opening a restaurant of her own, she could have gone anywhere. The City, Fortitude Valley, South Brisbane – any of these high-profile neighbourhoods would have been a logical landing point for a chef with Ashley’s top-tier pedigree.

But that wasn’t Ashley’s style.

In August 2022, Ashley opened Ramona Trattoria in the leafy heart of Coorparoo – a suburb known more for its abundance of cafes than its upscale restaurants. Ramona immediately blew the suburb’s socks off with a menu anchored by an old-school approach to Italian cooking. It’s the kind of fare diners previously had to trek closer to the inner city to find – we’re talking naturally leavened pizze, serves of hand-sheeted, hand-cut and hand-shaped pasta, and glasses of mighty fine Italian wine (plus the odd cocktail or two).

It’s this offering (and Ashley’s community-facing accessibility) that has kept Ramona Trattoria busy most evenings (even on Monday nights), buoyed by the support of a solid cadre of Coorparoo-based regulars and fans from further afield. “I just wanted a suburban restaurant – I didn’t want anything more than that,” says Ashley. “Now I have people come here that know me by my first, middle and last name. When I look at my booking system, some have come here 25 times.”

While Romana flourishing is exactly the kind of result Ashley hoped for, running an uber-popular suburban restaurant comes with a few complications. For most of its existence, the restaurant has been largely unable to accommodate those that arrived early for their booking and groups eager to linger after their meal had nowhere to enjoy an extra dash of the restaurant’s hospitality before calling it a night.

Bar Rocco – Ramona Trattoria’s more casual drink-and-snack-slinging sibling – looks to alleviate these issues. The venue is conveniently located right next door to Ramona in the space originally home to Spanish-inspired restaurant Paella y Pa’ Mi, which closed in July. When Ashley was approached with the offer of taking over the premises, her first thoughts were focused on extending her restaurant. But then the idea of adding something a little bit different – and purposefully informal – gained traction.

“We were contemplating either extending Ramona or just doing something different,” recalls Ashley. “I started to think more about it and realised that this place needed to stand on its own two feet, so I was going to have to lift the bar a little bit. Being in the ‘burbs, I felt that becoming a well-rounded Italian restaurant was the way to go.”

At its core, Bar Rocco is an osteria and bar – a place where locals can saunter in for a light bite on a whim, grab a wine before their booking or enjoy a digestivo afterwards.

Working with Alkot Studio, Ashley has swapped Paella y Pa’ Mi’s Andalusian-inspired aesthetic for one predicated on colour and fun. Green features, burgundy tiles and pops of pale pink offset dark marble-like benchtops and ivory render, with a use of shapes creating a sense of playfulness. “[The brief] was basically just to be a fun quirky space.” says Ashley. “Think Italian. Like green grass – the grass in Italy is so green – and red wine, where the burgundy colour comes from. The light pinks are added just to soften the tone.”

Across a bunch of circular 60-cm tables, tiled two-seater high tops and a strip of bench seating facing the street, Bar Rocco can seat 30. As the venue is geared more towards impromptu and casual dining, six seats are always set aside for walk ins, while group bookings cater to a maximum of six guests. That said, Bar Rocco’s flexible set up allows the team to cater for large-scale functions for up to 30 people.

While Ramona and Rocco share DNA, their respective menus are more specialised. At Rocco, it’s more of a free-flowing affair. “I would say it’s spuntini style, with things at a price per each so that people can choose what they want to spend,” explains Ashley. “People are in control of how they eat – I didn’t want them to feel forced.”

The menu starts by drilling down into antipasti-style snacks, with 48-hour-fermented focaccia, cured meats, crocchette di patate (potato croquettes with parmigiano, scarmorza and pepper), fiori di zucca fritti (fried zucchini flowers filled with lemon and herb buffalo ricotta), crumbed veal panino, and burrata with ox heart tomato, wood-roasted peach and basil.

Ramona’s handmade ethos continues at Rocca with a four-strong selection of pizzetta, topped with the likes of ‘nduja, honey, parmigiano and mascarpone, zucchini, blossoms, herbs and ricotta, and mortadella, pistachio and straciatella. And then there’s the mains. A custom woodfired grill (made by Samuel Fraraccio, who crafted Ramona’s barrel-vault pizza oven) is being utilised to cook the likes of Skull Island tiger prawns with capers, herbs and lemon, and house salsiccia condita e fagioli. Finally, one key point of difference between Rocco and its sibling is the presence of mains. Whereas Ramona’s menu caps out with pizza and pasta, Rocco gives patrons a choice of more subtantial plates, which right now includes picanha tagliata wagyu with rocket, and swordfish with tomato and olives.