Santini Bar & Grill is the signature dining room of QT Perth, the Art Series hotel on Murray Street whose design ambition single-handedly pulled the east end of the CBD into the modern era. Named (winkingly) for the notion of a Milanese trattoria's grandfather, Santini has since taken three Accommodation Awards for Restaurant of the Year — 2022, 2024, and again in 2026 — and established itself as one of Perth's most dependable Italian addresses for groups, birthdays, and the kind of mid-week dinner that runs long without making a production of itself.
The menu, under executive chef Marco Zangari, is Italian with conviction and without fuss. Handmade pasta is the heart of the kitchen — blue swimmer crab linguine with a light bisque butter and a squeeze of lemon is the signature and, on any given Friday, roughly a quarter of the tables will have a bowl of it at some point during the evening. The cacio e pepe clam pizza — a dish that sounds like gimmickry on paper and tastes like inevitability on the plate — is the kitchen's best flex; pecorino romano, black pepper, sea clams, and a Neapolitan base that bubbles and chars correctly. Risotto with squid ink, veal parmigiana, tomahawk, and salt-crusted bistecca alla Fiorentina round out the higher-end of the menu. The 1988 Tiramisu is the dessert the room expects you to order, and you should.
The dining room is a sleek, confident piece of Italian-by-way-of-Melbourne styling — terrazzo floors, tan leather banquettes, brass accents, a long marble bar that spills out toward the hotel atrium, and a private dining room (the Di Stasio room) that seats twelve around a single walnut table. Acoustics are managed; lighting is warm without being dim; the energy levels are reliably good. The bar programme leans into classic Italian aperitifs — Negronis, spritzes, house-made amaro — and the wine list is strong on Italian regional whites, Tuscan reds, and a considered Australian back-pocket.
Service is the quiet confidence of a hotel restaurant that has earned its independent identity. The team is Italian-warm without being theatrical; they know when to let the table talk and when to cut through with a pour or a suggestion. For a team dinner with eight to twelve guests, Santini is the default Perth CBD move — the sharing format keeps everyone talking, the pasta course makes the bill predictable, and the walk back to a hotel room upstairs (if you're staying at QT) is the luxury the venue is built around. Consistent, generous, dependable — and the rare hotel restaurant that locals book for themselves.