Delicious100: Alberto’s Lounge named top NSW restaurant
Barely a year old, newcomer Italian restaurant Alberto’s Lounge has stunned judges to take out the top spot in this year’s Delicious Top 100 restaurants in NSW. SEE THE FULL LIST OF WINNERS AND VOTE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE
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This time last year the owners of Alberto’s Lounge were still ordering linen and cutlery for their new Italian eatery.
It would be another two months before the first diner wandered through the venue’s nondescript door.
Now it has been crowned number one in delicious’s Top 100 Restaurants in NSW.
But head chef Dan Pepperell said things did not start well.
The man whose signature pasta dishes have made Alberto’s a hit, was shocked by some poor early reviews.
“Mostly online reviews but yeah … a lot of people weren’t into what we were doing,” Pepperell told The Sunday Telegraph.
He created a menu around two nightly entree-sized pasta specials.
“The pasta dishes were designed to be entrees and the idea being that you try a few dishes,” he said.
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“But a lot of people wanted to walk in and sit down to this huge pasta main course and then walk out.
“So there were some early reviews that had us worried. But eventually I think people got their heads around what we were trying to do.”
Not surprisingly Alberto’s also topped the Best Italian category in the delicious Top 100 in a year that saw a quarter of the list made up of Italian restaurants including fellow newcomers Totti’s (43) and Bacco Osteria, which snuck on to the list at number 99.
At the other end; Quay was named at number two for the second year in a row — a tribute to the staying power of Peter Gilmore’s fine-dining favourite.
At number three was Brent Savage’s Cirrus, followed by Momofuku Seiobo and Josh Niland’s fish emporium Saint Peter at number five.
Ester, Firedoor, Bert’s Brasserie and Bar, Restaurant Hubert and Brunswick Heads institution Fleet rounded out the top 10.
Delicious editor-in-chief Kerrie McCallum said while the top 20 had judges divided in a handful of cases, the winner was never in doubt.
“The top 20 are always all really close and separated by a hair’s-breadth!” McCallum said.
“(But) Alberto’s was the reviewers’ collective favourite though, and there was no arguing about it.”
“It just embodied everything that is delicious.
“It’s the place we have all kept going back to, lunch and dinner, since it opened earlier this year.
“Whenever anyone asks us where to go, it’s the place we always recommend.
“It has the X factor … a unique combination of really delicious, interesting Italian food that feels comforting but new, a cool but retro buzzy vibe, a secret entrance that feels a little hidden, a little like a club and, quite simply, very fun.
“The team and the chef have nailed the good times. The food, the fit-out, the drinks, the energy, the price — it’s exactly how people want to eat right now.”
Meanwhile Danielle Alvarez has led the growing wave of women head chefs gaining major accolades in NSW. Her wildly popular Fred’s in Paddington landed at number 11.
Fred’s made number one in its debut year in 2017 with the modern European diner figuring highly ever since.
“I honestly think that, compared to when we opened to where we are now, I actually feel like we’re so much better,” Alvarez, who oversees an almost all-women kitchen team at the stylish Oxford St venue, said.
“We certainly got a lot of praise when we first opened but now it’s like, I can look back and go: ‘Man that was hard’. But we’re still going and we’re in a really good place.”
Alvarez, who also has her first cookbook due out next month, is joined on the Top 100 by several of Sydney’s other female stars in O’Tama Carey and Jemma Whiteman (Lankan Filling Station), Trish Greentree (10 William Street), Jacqui Challinor (Nomad), Michelle Powell and Jo Ward (Bistro Rex) and Poly’s co-head chef Isabelle Caulfield.
