ARGUABLY the most popular downtown coffee stop, Perrotta's at the Gallery is actually so much more.

Open all day and most of the night, seven days a week, Perrotta's, at the corner of Shields  and Abbott streets, attracts a horses-for-courses clientele.

The brekky bunch is a dedicated band, which breezes through any time from 6.30am for the likes of banana bread with fresh ricotta ($7), French toast with vanilla roasted pear, raspberry caramel and yoghurt ($14) or a variety of egg dishes. They wash such goodies down with fruit smoothies, freshly squeezed juice blends and excellent coffee.

For the rest of the day, the lunch and dinner menu sufficiently covers everything from snacks to three-course meals. For a late lunch (or early dinner) we order large bowls of spaghetti with prawns, grapes, feta, cherry tomatoes and peperoncino ($23) and Paccheri (large pasta tubes) with polpette and tomato ragu ($21). For the uninitiated, polpette are big Italian meatballs.

Both dishes hit the spot, arriving hot and flavoursome. My prawns are a good size, though several are too mushy for my liking. The sweet grapes marry nicely with a lightly spicy sauce and fresh herbs and overall, despite the prawns, it's good. The meatballs are hearty and extra satisfying in their warm rich sauce on this cool wet and windy day. Some crusty bread would go down a treat, but none is on offer.

Perrotta's has drawn its following through consistency in the kitchen. Solid cooking and an easy affable atmosphere in a central location sees that a constant stream of locals and visitors passes through all day, every day. For the after-work drinks crowd, there's plenty of options, from cold beer to grappa, top-shelf champers and a good choice of wines by the glass at fair prices.

Deals are done and dusted over the tables at Perrotta's every day, tourist maps are perused, adventures recounted and newspapers by the score are read and folded, under the overhead fans on the open-air deck. It's a place to see and be seen, sometimes chic, other times corporate, always popular.

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