You cannot shake the sense that little has changed since Beppi Polese opened the doors to this restaurant in 1956. Both the furnishings and menu are classic mid-century transplants, and that's no bad thing. Mamma's gnocchi, for example. light, potato-ey nuggets napped in a thin gorgonzola sauce that is both gentle and soothing. Few can resist gnawing the fist-sized veal cutlet to the bone, its flesh cooked pink and coated in breadcrumbs flecked with herbs and parmesan and fried in butter till bronzed. Resistance is futile when it comes to another classic, the towering cocktail glass of ethereal warm zabaglione. There are a few things that could perhaps be relegated to the past. the limp-looking display of pasta of the day shown to diners before they order; supermarket-style grissini; and a rim of lurid pink sugar on the zabaglione glass. But to sit in the 'cave' surrounded by ancient bottles with their dusty, furling labels is to breathe Sydney culinary history.