GOURMET TRAVELLER 49PHOTOGRAPHY SASKIA WILSON (PORTRAIT). HARRIET DAVIDSON (FOOD AND INTERIOR).
S
peaking as someone who never
went to the Grand Pacific Blue
Room, all I have is questions.
Were there always this many stairs
when it was a club? Flights and flights of
them, turning up and around past what
should surely be a whole other level. Did
the neon always pulse so hypnotically?
Was the cappuccino of white beans with
truffle oil on the restaurant menu any
good, or was that just a ’90s thing?
Full Circle,the collective that, in its
current form, comprises floor manager
Tom Merryweather and chefs Daniel
Johnston and Harry Levy, are running
the place – and they sure know how
to pick a venue.
For Don Peppino’s, they’ve scraped
the patina of cigarette smoke and spilt
Daiquiris off the walls of the old Oxford
Street nightclub, scattered a few eucalyptus
branches around, and called it done.Left (from
left): Daniel
Johnston, Tom
Merryweather
and Harry Levy.
Right: pane
fritto with
anchovy,
ricotta with
peperonata,
garlic bread.The food is Italian-ish, with swagger.DAVID MATTHEWS
finds Don Peppino’s godfathers write their own rules.
Is Don, is good
The burners are firing again in the kitchen
that supplied the Blue Room’s restaurant,
but otherwise it’s bare bones and Tupac
Shakur posters in the toilets.
Wilmer, their last outing, was a sunny
alfresco situation in Potts Point, so this
might seem something of a regression.
Don Peppino’s is more in line with the
condemned-studio chic the Circle rocked
at The Eat In in Chippendale, perhaps, or
the fading-Italian-dynasty vibe they gave off
at run-down trattoria Alfio’s in Leichhardt
than a true step forward.
But how else to describe
the warm bread rolls filled with
caramelised garlic butter shot
through with marjoram other
than forward-thinking? Or fat
fingers of pane fritto shipping
a strip of tomato sugo and a single
Ortiz anchovy? Good with a Spritz
might be another way. You coulddo worse than sit at the bar, which runs
under big arched windows that let the
light in, and order these. It’s a chance,
at least, to take in the Deco design, and
recall a time when the club was jumpin’.
Pop-up or not, Don Peppino’s is Full
Circle’s most complete restaurant yet. It’s
the culmination of a steady evolution in
skill and a growing confidence in their
own style. These are people who have
form running places that only offered
set menus, didn’t take cards, and took
bookings only by text. Who cast off
established restaurant trappings, preferring
instead to focus on food, wine and good
times. Don Peppino’s feels the same,
a bit underground, a little raw. But now
the team has quietly slipped in all those
restaurant things it used to avoid, and
that focus is sharper than ever.
It shows in the execution. Whole river
trout, skinned and boned except for the
head and tail, is roasted just to
the point of being set. The brown
butter and almonds saucing it
are taken as far as they can be
withoutburning, giving the dish
a nuttiness and depth that’s kept
in check with suprêmes of lemon.
Is trout amandine Italian? Not
really. But the Don makes his own
rules: salsa d’anatra, the peppery➤Sydney review