The Mouth: a’Mare is an actual trip to Italy, without the PCR tests

Restaurant a’Mare, down at the new Crown Sydney, may well be Sydney’s sexiest new restaurant offering for a while, a trip to Italy without the PCR tests.

JRR Tolkein, he of Hobbit fame, once famously remarked that there is no more beautiful combination of words in the English language than “cellar door”.

This column couldn’t agree more and suggests that the only way they are ever improved is when said cellar door has a sign on the front gate saying, “tour buses strictly prohibited”.

But if “cellar door” makes the heart sing, then surely “staycation” must make it sink.

After all, is there a portmanteau that speaks more of restricted possibilities, whether because of money or kids or Covid bureaucrats, than that nonsense word that says: “Look, we could have rented a convertible and driven around the Napa Valley, but how good is it being a tourist in your own hometown?”

Of course, there are exceptions.

a'Mare at Crown Casino.

Take a’Mare, down at the new Crown Sydney, which may be this very pragmatic town’s sexiest new restaurant offering for a while.

And which, if this column may be so bold, might be exactly the place to blow the cobwebs off the once-hated “S” word.

Alessandro Pavoni at Ormeggio at The Spit.. Picture: John Appleyard

Run by head chef Alessandro Pavoni – northern beaches readers will know him from Ormeggioat The Spit – a’Mare is an actual trip to Italy, without the PCR tests.

Sydney, which has views in abundance, is happily beginning to dispel the old myth about never going to a restaurant with a view (Quay and Bondi Icebergs being great pioneers in this space).

Because, wow, the food. And, by the way, the service – much of which is done old-school, tableside.

There’s Italian sashimi, aka crudo, brought home with a variety of Italian oils.

There’s all the favourites like vitello tonnato, and great lobster courses that draw all eyes as they are brought through the dining room.

But the real joy is the pasta, with a simple Genoese trofie – a pasta shape this column first encountered hiking the Cinque Terre – tossed with a pesto made in front of you, mortar and pestle and all.

There is no other way to say this than that this column wanted to eat everything on the menu and on his companions’ plates.

While this column initially visited on business at lunch with very important people talking about very important things, the real pleasure to be had here would be in booking in for dinner, with a room upstairs.

After all, especially as one hits middle age, there is nothing more romantic than passing out with one’s beloved in a bed that neither one has to make the next day. A’Mare? As the song says, that’s amore.