Parramatta: Criniti’s Italian restaurant to reopen August 11

Get ready to twirl your spaghetti, an Italian restaurant chain is making its comeback in Parramatta where it all started. Catch a sneak peek and find out what will change when it reopens.

Eggs with your bruschetta, anyone?

Criniti’s Italian restaurant is returning to Parramatta’s dining strip on Thursday, August 11 and is introducing breakfast to its 300-item menu, which it boasts to being “Australia’s largest”.

The Church St eatery, where the iconic El-Phoenician Lebanese restaurant once graced tables with its opulent cuisine, is being fitted out this week ahead of its invitation-only launch on August 10, when guests including former Eels skipper Tim Mannah and actor Dan Ewing are expected to anoint the venue.

The next day, it will open for breakfast at 8.30am.

With a seating capacity of 340, it’s a cavernous but cosy space and has so far been furnished with booth seating and rustic arches, while the trestle tables are expected to be added throughout the week.

Twenty-five staff will serve woodfired pizzas and pasta at Criniti’s, which is now run by Adelaide’s Brunelli Group, after Criniti’s went into administration in 2019 with debts of more than $16.5 million.

Criniti's Italian restaurant a week shy of its return to Parramatta.

However, a last-minute sale of the business’ assets to Brunelli saved six of its 13 restaurants.

Brunelli also has plans to expand at Bondi, Brighton-Le-Sands and Manly along with interstate ventures in Canberra and Perth.

Frank Criniti and his now ex-wife Rima debuted Criniti’s on Church St in 2003. He now runs Frankie B’s on the former Criniti’s site, in the heart of Eat St.

Criniti's is perched along Eat St.

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