Sella Vinoteca — Restaurant in Sydney

An impromptu Saturday dinner on a long weekend with a daylight savings time change required comfort food. We got excellent food and excellent service.

We live north of the harbour and our friend is in Vaucluse so a hike to Randwick is knowing what awaits. The place was buzzing when we arrived for 8pm. But Fabio wasn’t there, touring Italy they said.

The gals started with a couple of excellent, not sweet, limoncello spritzes. Perfect for a balmy evening.

We shared stuffed eggplants, the mozzarella with tomatoes and a cured meat board. Mains were Mulloway, Spatchcock on greens and lamb cutlets - definitely not shared! A broccolini accompaniment. A light Nebbiolo was suggested to pair with our food. Smartly done as we'd ordered 3 very different mains.

The cured meats were some of the best we’ve had in Sydney. The eggplants perfectly done and the mozzarella salad a nice cooling dish. I can’t speak for the others’ mains but my spatchcock was finger licking perfect. I could seriously have taken another home for afters but we were full! Plates were mopped clean with bread.

Very pleased Stefano has hit his straps in the kitchen. This is One Ford Street (old Balmain haunt) food at its best. We followed Fabio when he left there to create Sella and are very glad Stefano rejoined him. The friendly and watchful service from the team is worth a mention.

So, Fabio, you can stay away and tour Italy more often 😁. Actually, we will be back soon to ask him for more Italy suggestions.

I hate the changeover to daylight savings so a big thank you to everyone last night for a wonderful meal. Had me smiling for once.

Happily recommend eating at Sella Vinoteca. The Sardinian food is simple, superb and suits Sydney...

We live on the North Shore and regularly drive to Sella Vinoteca opposite the hospital in Randwick to enjoy wonderful Italian food and wine.

This time we wanted a quiet Sunday dinner and we’re hoping for the advertised seafood. Sadly we missed the seafood platter as Instagram didn’t send the feed in time, it was last week’s. So we ordered some anchovies on tomato bread and vitello tonnato to start, followed by pasta as mains and a salad - simple Sunday. We asked Fabio to pick wines by the glass to match our food and palates. Well the food was excellent, the vitello the best we have tasted (against some of Sydney’s best restaurants) and the wine pairing was spot on.

As Fabio is a wine expert it was great to have a chat about what went with our dishes and to challenge our palates. It helped that we were able to try a couple of wines (blind tasting). I ended up with very expensive premium wines by the glass. But, the Montepulciano and Barolo were so superb that we bought a bottle of each from Fabio’s Sella bottle shop (they were $100 each but 3 glasses of the relevant wine would almost cost the bottle price). If we weren’t driving we would have been better off $$$wise just ordering a bottle.

A brilliant Sunday dinner with a couple of glasses of wine each. Could be a regular thing. My suggestion for better value is get a bottle of wine rather than by the glass. And thank you to Marco and the team for the wonderful food and service. I just wish Fabio had a place closer to home or quick public transport. With the Metro corridor in 2024 there’s room for another great Sella place on the North...

Lovely staff and relaxing, refined setting, but I’m sorry to say, it’s difficult to reconcile the total price with the tiny portions.

The mains are really the size of entrees at other restaurants - we ordered Mafalde pasta and the Ravioli, which is 6 pieces. $66 total. These two dishes took nearly 1.5 hours to arrive and it didn’t seem especially busy.

The entrees/starters were morsels - we had the Raw Tuna and Scallop - to be fair, we were told this by our lovely waitress - but $20 is too much to charge.

Ocean trout tartare ($26) again leaves us hungry.

It was my birthday and we were coming here for a birthday lunch. We had “Birthday” noted on our online Booking requirements, but nothing special mentioned or done.

Spent $45 on a wine bottle that we couldn’t finish due to a fly landing in it - no alternative offered.

All up, nearly $200 bill, without dessert. Maybe I just picked the wrong dishes?

I don’t like leaving tepid reviews. The staff were lovely, I just wish I didn’t feel this unsatisfied after...