Most of us will remember how our food tastes changed in the 1990s, even if we can't pinpoint an exact date.
One minute, we were eating meat and three veg for dinner, maybe with a weekly spag bol, an apricot chicken and a Chinese takeaway thrown in.
The next, it was all about pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, focaccia had replaced the humble sanger and bruschetta replaced the toastie. Especially once we'd all worked out how to pronounce them correctly.
And in Canberra, the Trimboli brothers were watching closely.
Joe, Pasquale, Dominic and Vince had run delis and cafes for 20 years before they decided to open Mezzalira in 1996. And it was a real punt; the heritage Melbourne building was away from the heart of Civic, and the building, at the time, housed Hansard and a careers reference centre. Charcoal Grill was a few doors down, but other than that, it was a quiet and overlooked pocket of the city centre.
"We were a bit dubious as to whether or not we should come up here in the first instance, but we soon realized that in this end of town, there was nobody here to cater for people, so everybody had to walk past here to get anything foodwise," says Joe Trimboli.
But they devised an extensive menu of traditional Italian dishes, opened on a Friday and waited. By lunchtime, there was a queue out the door, and they knew they were onto a good thing.
"We had a menu that covered anything from a quick bite to a full-on meal, so we covered all the bases, but we quickly learned that this end of town was more business-oriented, and therefore had to change our menu," he says.
"I guess we did that within the first year of being here - that's when we decided to venture into the full-on restaurant style scenario, and we've since been doing exactly that."
For a while, they did wood-fired pizzas in their own oven, but the lines were unmanageable. Joe says it was clear there was a demand for more casual Italian food that was still up-market, and so Italian & Sons was born in 2009. This hip Braddon eatery features Italian food with a modern twist, leaving Mezzalira to stick to the classics.
And in the meantime, the Mezzalira crowd has stayed constant. On the day we meet, it's the end of the lunch service, but there's still a European ambassador and her staff finishing their meal and enjoying a bottle of wine. The place has a traditional feel, with shelves of Italian products, wine racks and a large framed photograph of this particular corner of the Melbourne building back when it was first built.
There are now too many Italian restaurants throughout the city to count. Within walking distance of Mezzalira there are at least five, and all do a brisk trade. But Joe maintains he and his brothers have maintained their sense of authenticity.
"Everything that we had pasta-wise, and still to this day, was handmade," he says. "We didn't buy, and still don't buy, premade sauces ... Everything is made on the spot, including desserts. So that's our theme, and always has been."
Today's menu, along with a selection of pasta, also features scallops and duck-liver pate, eggplant parmigiana and tiramisu.
But laid on the table in front of us is a battered version of Mezzalira's first ever menu, as well as a desk diary on opening day, free of bookings.
Joe says what surprises him most when he looks at that early menu - apart from the fact a plate of pasta was $10 - is how much people's tastes have evolved in the past 30 years.
"All I can say is that the Canberra public has grown as well, and their taste buds have moved along," he says.
"When we started, probably half of them had no idea what, say, bocconcini would be, we used to have trouble selling them. Now they're well-travelled, they've experienced things now, I guess they're a different style of people, they're well-educated, shall we say, in that department, so therefore restaurants need to cater for it.
"If you can't cater for that scenario, you don't have longevity."
Just a few years later, Canberrans were still wanting new experiences. Authentic Italian food was a goer, but what about this new sharing thing people were talking about?
Over in Manuka, the Kaya family had been getting people used to Mediterranean food for a while, first with Alanya, the Anatolia and finally, the Ottoman. It first opened in the 1990s, and almost isn't a candidate for the iconic 2000s spot. But when the family decided to move the restaurant into a sumptuous new setting, away from the shopping strips and into a bold new location, it marked a new era, both for Canberra dining and for the family's mission to bring Turkish food to the capital.
It was 2000, and the restaurant had outgrown the Flinders Street corner it had occupied, in two different spaces, for years. They needed private rooms, and secluded corners.
And so they found a large, standalone pavilion, away from the street in Barton, with gardens and views, but privacy and an exclusive, destination feel.
But despite the elevated atmosphere, and the vast space they worried they'd never be able to fill, co-owner Gulbahar Kaya says that right from the start, the Ottoman was all about shared food.
"We started the sharing at the Ottoman - if there's six of you, we'll make sure there's six pieces, and those shared plates," she says.
"When we started, it was very formal dining or very casual Chinese restaurants. So then we came, and we were in between, not too formal, relaxed, and then really genuine Mediterranean flavours. We had a focus on seafood. We used to bring a lot of fresh seafood from Sydney, and that made people realise there's more to Turkish food than kebabs or wraps, so it expanded their understanding, I suppose, and exposure."
The Barton space was a revelation when they first saw it.
"It was in the right location, a beautiful building with lots of potential," she says.
"It was a very different special offering - connections with the outdoors, accessibility. You're not on the footpath, people aren't staring at you when you're sitting at the window, you're not in a fishbowl, because with Manuka, that's what it was. If you don't have your curtains closed and you want to have a romantic lunch, private dinner, or even a family catch-up, you don't want people staring at you when you're eating your food.
"So, this gave them the view without having to be on display."
And it said a lot about Canberra at the turn of the century that authentic Turkish food was the go. Nowadays, zucchini flowers, mezze platters and pide with dips are de rigueur. But there was a time when these were unfamiliar, and exciting.
Chef Serif Kaya had always wanted to lean more into seafood, despite being in the landlocked capital.
"Serif had Anatolia in the late 80s and early 90s, and he always said, 'I really want to go into more seafood offerings', and he started creating new dishes, his own inspiration like the mushrooms, the veal.
"Now there are classic dishes, they're always on the menu. And when we opened Ottoman, he added more of his creations, and so the 90s and 2000s was the beginning of that, finding our formula for the Ottoman and finding our market."
Meals are rounded off with house-made baklava and Turkish delight, also not always a given in late 20th century Canberra. But the young city has never stopped evolving.
When the Kayas decided to hang up their aprons a few years ago, the scene was bereft of its up-market Turkish mainstay. But before too long, the pair realised their mission in life hadn't ended. When an opportunity came up to buy back the building into which they'd invested so much character, they jumped.
When the Ottoman reopened in 2024, it was just the same as before, and everyone came right back in, craving the familiarity of the vast, rectangular dining room, filo rolls and spicy mushrooms. When everything old is new - and then old - again, you know you're onto a good thing in Canberra.
The regulars who had complained when they moved to Barton followed them right the way there, and when the newer crowd moved on after the 2020 closure, they came back in a hurry when the place reopened.
And despite the formal, special-occasion atmosphere, Gulbahar insists the place is ultimately casual.
"I hope it's relaxed, which certainly makes people feel welcome," she says.
"People come with kids, they come with elderly parents - It's all fine. We find a place for everyone. I's big enough."
