The Italian Bowl: Why Sydney is obsessed with this pasta joint
FOOD trends and cool restaurants come and go, but when you’ve survived 13 years in one of Sydney’s toughest foodie strips by dishing up simple bowls of pasta — and people still queue every night — you’re doing something special.
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FOOD trends and restaurants come and go, but when you’ve survived 13 years on one of Sydney’s toughest dining strips dishing up simple bowls of pasta — and still have a queue seven nights a week — you’re doing something special.
The Italian Bowl in King St Newtown isn’t a hipster joint, it’s not fine-dining — it’s not even that Instagram friendly. And nothing much has changed on the menu since Vince Muscolo, armed with a handful of good pasta sauces, opened it in 2005.
But this neighbourhood eatery is absolutely booming, serving more than 1000 dishes a day (almost double on weekends), and sending out the most Uber Eats home deliveries in Sydney for non-franchise restaurants.
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Jenny Spyridis, who runs the business with her dad Vince, mum Mary and husband Alexi Spyridis, said the secret to their survival was straight forward; fresh, affordable food, delivered fast, cooked in front of your eyes and the customer is always number one.
“You’ve got to have a passion for it, and your customers, they’ve got to be number one.” she said. “We’ve also had staff there from day one, because we look after our staff, they look after our customers. And our cooks there are longstanding, which we’re very lucky because it’s a hard business.”
While social media feeds are dominated by schmick restaurants and gimmicky dishes, Italian Bowl is proof longevity in the food business is often borne from something much simpler.
“This is food that you can have every day, it’s cheap enough, it’s fresh enough, and it’s simple. You leave full and you’ve spent $20,” she said. “We’ve increased our prices once in 13 years by $2 a dish, and the suppliers (prices) go up every year. We try and keep it low as we can because we need volume.”
The menu is minimal — pick your pasta, bowl size and sauce with dishes starting at $14. There’s also few risottos, veal and chicken dishes, salads and sides. The potato gnocchi, lasagne sheets and cannelloni are handmade off premises but the pastas are just good quality packet pasta.
“With our volume, you can’t do handmade pasta, it just won’t go well, you’ve got to be very delicate, that’s for fine dining,” Jenny said. “And the sauces are my dad’s, he’s not a chef, he’s just Italian but he’s got a knack.”
While Uber Eats has been hit and miss for some businesses, for The Italian Bowl it’s been a huge boost to their bottom line. The eatery’s location, prices and the suburb’s demographic has meant it’s outpaced virtually every Sydney restaurant other than McDonald’s. They’ve now set up a second kitchen to just handle UberEats orders.
“I think it’s our food, the quality and the cheapness, and we don’t muck around with time,” said Jenny. “On weekends, we’ve got 20 Uber Eats drivers just waiting out the back!”
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For more details, visit The Italian Bowl.
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