Pasta Emilia — Restaurant in Sydney

Swathed in yellow light, the Riley Street warehouse is home to a pasta kitchen, cooking school, shop and restaurant. With exposed rafters and communal wooden tables decorated with fresh flowers, the long convivial space has the orderly clutter of a lived-in, rural kitchen. Neat rows of pickle jars line the white shelves down one side. On the other there’s a well stocked bar sitting behind a counter that ends with a shiny meat slicer.

The slicer is put to good effect on the Salume Misto e Torta Fritta ($28) – a rustic board of thinly sliced cold cuts, including Italian mortadella that I particularly enjoyed laid over the airy, crimped pockets of fried bread. Against a biodynamic 2016 Chardonnay Per Antoine ($68) from Verona, Italy, the cold cuts created a bridge from my hard work day and unwinding into dinner with friends. With minerality and gentle oak, the chardonnay was an elegant entry point into what proved to be an unusual wine list.

The 2016 La Barabina Bonarda Frizzante ($45) is less fizzy than a sparkling wine. Drunk from little ceramic cups, in Italy it would have been taken straight from the cellar, though the Australian climate may warrant a touch of refrigeration. It’s deep red and has some red berry sweetness, but also plenty of tang. It's the preferred post work drop of older Italian men who work all day in the fields, and then come home to drink it with Pane Salame Burro alle acciughe e Gutturnio in scodella ($23). Presented on house-made, thickly buttered bread, this combination of salty anchovies and salami is a bit of a revelation!

Proscuitto e Stracchino ($22) takes gentle sweet-cured ham and teams it with soft, white Emelian cheese on rustic, house-made bread or crusty Iggy’s sourdough. With the weather warming, cooked vegetables have given way to seasonal salads, allowing you to team your pasta with fresh mixed leaves in Insalata Stagionata con olio e balsamico ($14). Alternatively you can take things antipasto-style with little roll-ups of grilled eggplant and asparagus spears, or Insalata Caprese ($14) that pays homage to the colours of the Italian flag. Everything is fresh, well dressed and seasoned.

The main event is, of course, the pasta. My favourite is Pisarei e Faso ($25) – true ‘cucina povera’ (poor people’s food) where gnocchetti are created from baked seasoned breadcrumbs (yesterday's bread) and cooked in a sauce with lard and borlotti beans. It had me longing for a childhood I never had, far away from dishes like apricot chicken. Tortelli di Granchio e gamberetti all’arrabiata ($36) feels more upmarket, but cleverly keeps your focus on the eye-catching half-black, half-white pasta pockets filled with crab, prawn and a hint of lemon rind, using a judicious application of chilli tomato sauce.

Tortelli di Raparossa e caprino con Cavolo Nero e salsa verde ($32) see the toothsome tortelli take on a pale pink hue courtesy of their beetroot and chèvre interiors, under a scattering of crisp kale. By this stage I resolve quietly to try to cook these pastas better at home, following the timing instructions more precisely to end up with the same bite.

Sated I just nibble on dessert – fig pannacotta, tiramisu and cheese - more as a foil to my house-made digestivo: Emilian Nocino - Walnut Liquor ($10), than a course...

25 November 2023

Well, it's a year on from the previous review. The food from Pasta Emilia was very disappointing. Don't mind paying for great food, but the food here was very ordinary. Servings were small, pesto very bland and garnishes specifically noted on the menu and sounded very drool-worthy, were hard to find in the served up dish. The bread we remembered was delicious, but the bread this time, seemed like day old focaccia. Desserts also, were disappointing, especially one that was ordered, don't recall the exact name, but it was supposed to be a Millefoglie pastry (very thin and a bit overcooked, a few shards lying over a small (hard to find) amount of zabaglione (or maybe it was syllabub), sauce, with a few berries (literally, only a few) thrown on top. One person asked for a scoop of the fig ice-cream and a scoop of vanilla - what was brought out were two separate bowls of fig ice-cream. Not even that nice, it tasted like licorice jubes, mixed through some kind of ice-cream. On a better note, the wine recommended was delicious, as was the rainbow salad and the service also, was very polite. Maybe next year may be better - fingers crossed.

Below is my previous review, approx a year ago. Very popular, a little bit hot and noisy, but wow, the food is so amazing ! he people serving our table were a little "off-with-the-fairies" and vague (don't mean that in a disparaging way though) and there was no one to ask about the wines / drinks on offer. The waitresses weren't able to talk about the dishes from the menu, perhaps that was because of the noise also. But with all that said, there was also no one who was rude or abrupt with us. And we even got a slight smile from one of the waitresses at the end of the evening. So can't really complain about service. We did have to remind the waitresses about some drinks we'd ordered but that wasn't by any means a deal breaker, it was after all, very busy. The wine that was eventually recommended to us, wasn't even on the wine list which I found out, when I was trying to find some details about it. Perhaps that could have been mentioned beforehand? It was really a tasty easy drinking soft red with the slightest touch of refreshing fruitiness, which we all enjoyed immensely.

• Suggestion to the restaurant, if I may? A couple of wines on the wine list had some helpful notes included e.g. flavours, softness, fragrances, etc. This would have been so very helpful if there were some tasting notes for ALL of the wines, saving questions being thrown at the people serving, along with alleviating frustration and confusion from the patrons when we weren't able to select suitable wines, after all, wines are never cheap in restaurants so you do want to get something that will be to your liking.

• Personally, being a lover of wines, I'd be more than happy to help out with some tasting notes, if the owner is reading this ! :-) . Overall, it was a really enjoyable evening, we all (five of us) enjoyed the restaurant immensely, food delicious and an atmosphere of boisterous cheer. Would def recommend...

Pasta Emilia, traditional Italian in the heart of Surry Hills. We would describe it as Italian rustic, a large space for guests to dine, pasta making out the back and a gourmet store downstairs for street access. Owner Anna Maria hails from Italy herself, from the Emilia Romagna region. She and her husband have significant experience in the restaurant industry, in Italy, Bronte and now, Surry Hills. The menu has traditional recipes using homemade fresh pasta using organic products from local farms, designed to change seasonally. The antipasto, from the region that is famous for these ingredients; prosciutto, cops, ham, mortadella, salami, olives, pickled vegetables, ricotta, parmesan, fritters with aged balsamic - the Bread (pinzemonio) was wonderful.

The famous emilia romano pasta is made on site using cheese, balsamic and egg based pasta was incredible - we tried the beetroot spaghetti with walnut cream sauce, a beautiful pasta and the accompanying sauce worked well together and was easily our favourite dish of the evening. The duck and truffle ragu ravioli was also another top choice; pasta cooked aldente with a smooth tasty duck filling and a butter and crisp sage sauce. In true Italian style, the second main course, following the pastas was a great sharing dish with beef tagliata with fregola, balsamic and seasonal leaves as well as another highlight - the creamy burrata with salad. You also can't go past a dessert, and we certainly didn't, with a shared platter of flourless chocolate cake, amaretto ice cream, pannacotta, and a divine tiramisu. It wouldn't be a true Italian experience without wine, and we had an Italian Red and a refreshing Aperol Spritz. There are plenty of choices for an authentic dining experience. Underneath the restaurant is a garage space with a cliched vespa, walls adorned with in house produced small goods and earthen ware selling little marionette coffee, sauces, fresh frozen pastas to continue your Italian experience in your own home. We had an extremely attentive Italian waiter, Fabrizio and we would like to thank the owners and the staff for making this an enjoyable dining experience and the welcoming and friendly hospitality that Italians are known for. A perfect setting to enjoy great Italian food with family...