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European summer is coming to Cammeray with the opening of Nico on Friday, October 13.

The modern Italian restaurant is the first independent venture from Nicola Ronconi, former group executive chef of Sydney hospitality giant Urban Purveyor Group, best known for Fratelli Fresh. The group later acquired Neil Perry’s restaurants, becoming Rockpool Dining Group.

Ronconi says the restaurant was inspired by his time on the Amalfi Coast, where the pasta is fresh, the seafood is plentiful and the frosted glasses of house-made limoncello are savoured beneath colourful umbrellas.

“I told my wife [Gozde Ronconi] that I want to create a restaurant that captures this feeling, like when you’re on holiday and you forget about all of your worries, and just enjoy the moment,” Ronconi says.

“I want them to close their eyes and be transported to Italy.”

It took Ronconi more than a year to find a suitable space, in a Cammeray Plaza shopfront that was subsequently gutted and built from scratch.

“North of the harbour is the future of hospitality,” he says.

“I used to think crossing the bridge was too far, but it’s literally a five-minute drive from Wynyard.”

“North of the harbour is the future of hospitality”

Chef and owner Nicola Ronconi

The light-filled interiors are deep, sea blue and terracotta, featuring comfortable banquette seating, an open kitchen and private dining room. Ronconi hopes it will tread the line of a casual fine diner, equally suited to impromptu weeknight meals as celebratory dinners.

As head chef (“I’ll be in the kitchen 24/7”), Ronconi has created a light, mostly-Italian menu, inspired by his childhood in Vicenza (a 16th-century town outside of Venice) and his past 11 years in Australia.

There are snack plates to pick over during aperitivo hour in the courtyard, limoncello spritz in hand. These include homemade focaccia, savoury ricotta frittella (fritter) with anchovies and lime, and Sicilian cannoli with salmon and flying fish roe.

And there is a lot of pasta, to be made fresh each day at the restaurant. Ronconi says the casarecce with lemon gin (“and a touch of ginger”) is a standout, alongside the spaghetti cacio e pepe, with the addition of plump mussels.

But the signature dish is a lemon tiramisu. It’s a dessert Ronconi has been finessing since he was a child, dreaming of becoming a chef, using lemons gathered from his father’s citrus grove.

“Tiramisu can be really rich, and I think the lemon cuts through it, making it feel much lighter,” he says.

Bookings are open now.

Open lunch Fri-Sun, dinner Wed to Sat

Shop 18, 450 Miller Street, Cammeray, nicorestaurant.com.au

Correction: A previous edition of this story named Nicola Ronconi as the former executive chef of Rockpool Bar & Grill. The copy has been updated to reflect that Ronconi was the executive chef of the hospitality group Urban Purveyor Group, which acquired Rockpool Bar & Grill and was renamed Rockpool Dining Group after his departure.