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Can’t get into Firedoor? Drive to this more affordable fire-driven Central Coast gem

Like Firedoor, Osteria il Coccia exclusively uses fire and coals, but unlike the former, where it can take months to get a table for the $195 five-course menu, it happily accepts walk-ins and a $49 pork cutlet is big enough to share.

Callan Boys
Callan Boys

Osteria Il Coccia’s plush, coastal chic dining room.
1 / 7Osteria Il Coccia’s plush, coastal chic dining room.Jennifer Soo
Piadina, taramasalata and salmon roe.
2 / 7Piadina, taramasalata and salmon roe.Jennifer Soo
Ricotta and smoked mozzarella cappelletti with bolognese.
3 / 7Ricotta and smoked mozzarella cappelletti with bolognese.Jennifer Soo
Like Firedoor’s Lennox Hastie, chef Nicola “Nico” Coccia cooks exclusively with fire and coals.
4 / 7Like Firedoor’s Lennox Hastie, chef Nicola “Nico” Coccia cooks exclusively with fire and coals.Jennifer Soo
Go-to dish: Pork cutlet, romesco and caramelised onion.
5 / 7Go-to dish: Pork cutlet, romesco and caramelised onion.Jennifer Soo
Basque cheesecake, grape and Amaro Montenegro coulis.
6 / 7Basque cheesecake, grape and Amaro Montenegro coulis.Jennifer Soo
Alexandra Coccia (pictured, centre) leads the front-of-house team.
7 / 7Alexandra Coccia (pictured, centre) leads the front-of-house team.Jennifer Soo

Good Food hat15.5/20

Italian$$

At the surface level, Osteria il Coccia looks like many other coastal diners where lunch tends to start with rosé and oysters. Rattan chairs, white linen cushions and dried flowers. Tones of apricot, polished wood and very nice tiling. With a view of Ettalong Beach through trees across the road, you might expect a menu spruiking safe things like prawn rolls and panko-crumbed whiting.

But the food here isn’t phoned in. Nicola Coccia’s cooking is equal parts commanding and comforting and there isn’t another restaurant on the Central Coast quite like it. Heck, there aren’t many Sydney restaurants like it.

Firedoor in Surry Hills – where Lennox Hastie cooks with flames and embers rather than gas and electricity – is the only blood relation. Coccia exclusively uses fire and coals, too, but unlike Firedoor, where it can take months to get a table and the five-course tasting menu costs $195, Coccia happily accepts walk-in guests and a saltbush-garnished pork cutlet is big enough to split between
two for $49. It’s been open since 2019, and I feel a sting of shame it’s taken me so long to visit.

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That pork cutlet is a tremendous bit of pig. Its blistered skin has gnarly, audible crackle and there’ll be an arm wrestle to claim the bone.

Before they opened in Ettalong, Coccia and his wife, Alexandra, ran a hatted bistro in Bowral. The Naples-born chef also spent time at Ormeggio at The Spit in Mosman and you can see some of that modern Italian influence in dishes such as the piadina romagnola ($21) – three pillowy discs of flatbread served with a lush squiggle of taramasalata and neon-orange pops of salmon roe.

Piadina, taramasalata and salmon roe.
Piadina, taramasalata and salmon roe.Jennifer Soo

It’s the right way to kick off lunch, maybe with a bottle of Bernard Metrat 2021 “Terre d’Alizarine” Gamay ($80), which has enough spice and weight to carry you through to the meatier stuff.

And meaty stuff it is. (If you can rally a large group to eat here, do so.) That 350-gram pork cutlet is a tremendous bit of pig, dry-aged and grilled over ironbark and sticky with a wine and bone-based reduction, plus bright romesco sauce. Its blistered skin has gnarly, audible crackle and there’ll be an arm wrestle to claim the bone.

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Go-to dish: Pork cutlet, romesco and caramelised onion.
Go-to dish: Pork cutlet, romesco and caramelised onion.Jennifer Soo

Juicy, deep-crimson duck breast ($50) is also dry-aged before a respectful turn over the embers and sits pretty next to black-garlic puree and marigold flowers.

Rangers Valley sirloin ($58) tastes of a cow that’s spent a good life munching on grain, and nudges a wodge of potato gratin and salsa verde.

Alexandra leads a floor team that’s properly invested in guests having a beaut time: jokes are shared; wine is recommended; martinis ($22) are stiff and cold.

Ricotta and smoked mozzarella cappelletti with bolognese.
Ricotta and smoked mozzarella cappelletti with bolognese.Jennifer Soo
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There were four of us eating when I visited in June, so the cappelletti ($38) was split across four bowls. The chubby, ricotta-filled parcels are flavour-boosted with smoked mozzarella, while bolognese-style ragu sits on top, rich with veal and beef and pork sausage, plus the magic that happens after many hours of intimate behaviour between milk and wine. I would very much like to eat it on toast.

Tuna pops up a few times in the form of a fillet of wood-roasted bluefin to share ($55) and raw swatches ($29) with a broth reinforced by smoked fish bones, bonito flakes, honey and lemon (although a little more acid wouldn’t be the worst thing).

A riff on Piedmont’s vitello tonnato ($29) stars thin slices of buttery, marbled wagyu instead of veal, and a balanced, tuna-infused cream sauce that’s punchy without being a fishy slap in the face.

Anyone with a serious sweet tooth will find a lot to like about a tarte tatin ($24) with smoked cream poured tableside over deeply caramelised apples.

Basque cheesecake, grape and Amaro Montenegro coulis.
Basque cheesecake, grape and Amaro Montenegro coulis.Jennifer Soo
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I’m more into the $25 Basque cheesecake (and its relatively restrained use of sugar), light and airy and covered in a tangy, purple coulis of grapes and Amaro Montenegro. The tidy list of digestive booze may come in handy at this juncture. I can’t imagine anyone has ever left a lunch here still hungry.

The Coccias recently announced that they’ll be opening Carne & Cucina, a new restaurant and butcher shop in Erina Heights. A joint project with the team from Saratoga Quality Meats, there’ll be more hunks of dry-aged, particularly beefy steaks, pastas and take-home meals (Nico is a bloke who knows his way around a lasagne).

It’s set to open in the next couple of weeks, but the exact date is still a moving target. What I can confirm is that it won’t take me five years to visit it.

The low-down

Vibe: Big, wood-fired flavours against a backdrop of plush, coastal chic

Go-to dish: Pork cutlet with romesco and caramelised onion ($49)

Drinks: Italian-championing wine list with familiar names among the emerging producers; commendable cocktails and a one-page selection of teas

Cost: About $190 for two, excluding drinks; five-course tasting menu, lunch and Saturday dinner, $139pp

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine

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Callan BoysCallan Boys is editor of SMH Good Food Guide, restaurant critic for Good Weekend and Good Food writer.

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Original URL: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/goodfood/sydney-eating-out/can-t-get-into-firedoor-drive-to-this-more-affordable-fire-driven-central-coast-gem-20240718-p5juph.html