DetailsDon Peppino’s
1 Oxford St, Paddington,
NSW, (02) 9326 9302,
donpeppinos.com.au
Licensed
CardsAE MC V EFT
OpenWed-Sat
6pm-midnight
PricesEntrées $12-$18,
main courses $19-$34,
dessert $8-$12
VegetarianThree entrées,
one main course
NoiseLoud
Wheelchair accessNo
MinusSo many stairs
PlusFull Circle
goes full circle50 GOURMET TRAVELLERClockwise from right: the Don
Peppino’s dining room, and the
final flight of stairs before entering
the restaurant; tonnarelli primavera
(top) and bucatini salsa d’anatra.Sydney review
duck ragú, often enriched
with duck liver and heart, is
enriched with pork instead.
It’s not a bad choice. Neither
is serving it with bucatini.
It’s also a chance to show
off their pasta skills. They’ve
got an extruder in house,
meaning that pasta comes
in all shapes and sizes. And
when they’ve got good
peas they add them to
noodly tonnarelli with baby
zucchini and their flowers,
and showering it with ricotta
salata. Any leftover zucchini
might be roasted, tossed with
chilli and mint, and served
with a lobe of mozzarella.
The menu changes
often, but the through-line
is food that’s cheesy, saucy or,
sometimes, both: peperonata with
ricotta cooked on the stove one
night, pork braised in milk the next.
Wines are either Italian or Australian,
and the unifying theme on the list – one
page, handwritten – is that almost all of
them are made with minimal intervention.
The reds, such as the Xavier Goodridge
Pa Pa Pinot Noir might be chilled, or at
least low in alcohol, for easy drinking.
There’s also Latta sauvignon blanc from
Moonambel in Victoria, and carafes
of decent house wines for $27. The
half-Negronis that Wilmer introduced
return here, joining The Grifter PaleAle and a cider made
with apples pilfered from
roadside trees in the
Southern Highlands.
This plays to the crowd.
It’s predominantly young,
likes it loud and loose, and
isn’t going to blink at service
that falls somewhere between
clear-eyed, precise and
brazenly casual. A crowd
who’ll look at the DJ platform
and reminisce about when
they were lining up out the
front for hip-hop nights and
ultra-glam Sundays.
Desserts, too, are an
exercise in nostalgia. Halved lemons
and cheeks of mango hollowed out and
refilled with sorbet improve on those
you might find at a suburban pizza
shop, plus there’s boozy tiramisù,
and a star-shaped panna cotta almost
collapsing under its own weight and
lolling in a burnt-orange caramel.
Smart. Simple.
Pop-up? And then some. Don
Peppino’s is sticking around for an entire
year, giving it a chance to stretch and grow.
Wherever it goes, on the strength of its
first few weeks, it’s going to be one party
where we all want to be.●POWELL DOES PIZZA
Don Bocarte anchovies for $20? Or Cuca
for $12? Either way, being given a tin of
cured fish to drape over a marinara pizza
is a special kind of pleasure. Such is life
atBella Brutta(above), the Newtown digs
where Luke Powell has traded the smoker
at LP’s Quality Meats for wood fire and a
slow ferment. LP’s pepperoni and clams
top other pizze, but the front of the menu,
where ’nduja is stirred through white
beans and burnt mandarin dresses leaves
of radicchio, is the real highlight.Bella
Brutta, 135 King St, Newtown, (02) 9922 5941NYC BAR COMES TO TOWN
A discreet EO and neon “Psychic” sign
are the only markers outsideEmployees
Only, the Sydney offshoot of the NYC
cocktail bar, but already half the city is
squeezing in. Late-night might be the best
time to order calamari with sauce ravigote
and an Improved Margarita shaken with
Cointreau and orange blossom. Chef
Aurelien Girault (Nour) is also serving
plates of EO Special Staff Meal to guests,
while tarot reader, Nardine, is on hand to
peer into your future.9a Barrack St, SydneyWHSKY GO, GO
Banchō, from the Tokyo Bird team, has
opened near Market City, billing itself as
a small bar for Chinatown. It’s not actually
that small, but the food menu is limited
to a few bao and deep-fried things on
sticks. Japanese whisky is the go, but
staff know their Scotch and new-wave
Taiwanese bottles almost as well as their
Chita and their Nikka Taketsuru. There
are bottle lockers for regulars, and wildly
addictive sticks of fried spaghetti in what
we’re told is “seafood and seaweed salt”.
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