Ask almost any restaurateur and they’ll say the same thing: cover counts are dwindling and spend per head is down. It is, in other words, not an auspicious time to be launching a restaurant, let alone a two-storey, indoor/outdoor 150-seater in a quiet leafy suburb. Yet despite the beleaguered state of business (or maybe because of it), Postino Osteria may just be Sydney’s smartest opening this year.
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Where Alessandro Pavoni is cooking Italian food, of course, folks will follow. So, it’s hardly a shock to find nearly every table occupied at 7.30 on a Thursday night, clinking Spritzes and passing plates of mondeghini – unmissable stewy-soft Milanese meatballs crumbed and fried to a gratifying golden crunch.
I sense, however, that the Summer Hill set has also turned up to celebrate the revival of the heritage-listed former post office, which for 10 years housed the venerated One Penny Red.
It is a holy grail site, a colonnaded Federation-era beauty that’s a glove-like fit for what Pavoni – with wife, Anna, and business partner, Bill Drakopoulous – is pitching as a neighbourhood joint. And for a chef who’s forged a career on flashy waterside diners like a’Mare and Ormeggio at The Spit, it’s a marked departure. It’s also a sensible one, conscious of value, community-minded and steered by comfort and familiarity.
The baccalà mantecato at Postino Osteria in Summer Hill(photo: Jason Loucas)
The menu reads a bit like La Cucina Vera 101 – trippa alla Romana, linguine alla Nerano, saltimbocca, babà Napoletano – but top-drawer ingredients and a refined touch push things beyond the banal. Slices of slow-cooked Blackmore wagyu bring requisite heft to an assertive tonnato finished with pine nuts and capers. Milk-poached Murray cod makes for a soft-spoken rendition of baccalà mantecato, accompanied by a wafery polenta crisp. Flouncy house-made gigli tossed with king prawns and cherry tomatoes is rendered bright and briny by orange zest and Pilu bottarga.
Through to the splendidly mascarpone-rich tiramisù flecked with pistacchi di Bronte, this is food you almost always want to eat, joined by cocktails and wines (mostly Italian, many organic) you want to drink, at prices you’re happy to pay. Revolutionary? Hardly, but it’s brought to life with conviction and a reverence for the old-school osteria that’s evident in everything from the throwback soundtrack, distressed mirrors and marble bar tops to the gleefully retro plating of a spot-on eggplant parmigiana.
There’s something affirming about seeing seasoned pros going back to basics, tapping the potential of the low-key local with attentiveness and generosity (note the $79 set menu, along with vegetarian, vegan and children’s options). And when restaurants seem to be cutting corners or going to great lengths to outdo one another, it’s refreshing to find a newcomer with resolved ideas about what it is and wants to be, poised to be here not just for a good time, but a long one, too.
