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In February, I received welcome news. The team behind Fabbrica, the casual pasta bar and shop near Martin Place, would be opening an outpost on the ground level of Balmain’s Exchange Hotel. It would be a four-block stroll from my house with cult Italian wines, cotoletta and spaghetti. I booked immediately.

For too long, Balmain has been a hotbed of outstandingly “okay” restaurants. Friendly places to grab some noodles or a margherita, but you can usually shoot a cannonball up the main street by 9pm. Fabbrica, however, is regularly open until midnight. This is a seismic shift for dining on the peninsula.

The osteria comes to the inner west courtesy of the crew behind Darlinghurst wine bar Love, Tilly Devine and Angel Place’s hatted Ragazzi. The first Fabbrica opened in 2020, specialising in sandwiches and pasta during the day and snacks and larger plates at dinner.

The rest of Balmain also seems thrilled to have a bit of inner-city panache in the neighbourhood. I’ve been to Fabbrica three times since it opened in March and, on each visit, the dining room has been packed with couples and young families sharing crusty focaccia loaded with housemade butter and fat anchovies ($16).

Fabbrica is only around until the end of the year while the owners renovate the rest of the pub. Annoying, I know. This is no slapdash “that’ll do” pop-up, though. It’s an inviting place of stained timber, soft lighting and a sturdy bar where you can sit on a schooner of Resch’s ($10) and plate of mortadella ($16).

Children are more than welcome: there are paper and crayons and handmade wooden high chairs on hand. There are simple, off-menu pastas for kids, too, but most dishes are built on familiar flavours that should satisfy any generation.

Five-year-old me would have demolished the spaghetti cacio e pepe, a cheesy, peppery tangle of requisite bite and slipperiness. The 38-year-old version of me also has a swell time, but I can’t help wondering why the combination of mostly cheese, flour and water costs $26, even if the staff are well practised and presumably properly paid.

Otherwise, prices are on par with other local restaurants. Group chef Scott McComas-Williams has listed five pastas, while the $30 lamb ragu is set to be many locals’ best friend this winter. Lamb is braised overnight with a little tomato to become rich and soothing, and served with a liberal dollop of ricotta and gigli (the bell-shaped pasta with ruffled edges). It practically floats on the aroma of rosemary.

The most expensive pasta, at $33, is butter-glossed conchiglie (the seashell one) spangled with corn and spanner crab. The serving isn’t as large as the seafood linguine you’ll find in a standard pub bistro, but the flecks of crab are generous and sweet.

A $32 mafaldine (the frilly one) is painted with a delightful mess of tomato, spicy ’nduja and prawns.

If you’re off carbohydrates, probably don’t come here. The only non-pasta main is a $28 pork cotoletta alla milanese (Italian for fancy pub schnitzel on the bone). The meat is blessed with a sweet ribbon of fat offset with crisp-fried sage leaves and panko coating that’s all crunch.

The snack part of the carte is also quite bready, with sheets of pasta fritta engineered to ferry tuna crudo tingling with wasabi oil ($22). Lightly battered zucchini flowers ($6 each) are stuffed with ricotta and doused in chilli-spiked honey to make one heck of an accompaniment for a negroni ($20).

Precisely judged vitello tonnato ($24) is potentially big enough to be a main, but I know Italians who would have conniptions if the chilled veal with tuna sauce was served as anything but a starter.

Dessert is a nicely done hazelnut tiramisu ($15) and, at this point, you might call it a night. If there’s no rush, though, staff are happy to recommend, and open, another bottle. There are plenty of chilled reds to suit any occasion or humidity level; we opt for a refreshing 2021 Foradori Lezer Teroldego from Trentino ($99).

I receive a lot of emails asking for more reviews in the suburbs and yet, despite more Sydneysiders working from home, so many of the hot new joints still open around the
CBD. Maybe Fabbrica will help to bring about a change.

I suspect there are other restaurateurs watching to see if you can serve snacks and $100 bottles of riesling in a sleepy neighbourhood without causing NIMBY
residents to complain. If an open-till-late pasta and wine bar proves workable in Balmain, the next one might just be permanent.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine