Restaurant Leo Sydney review: no compromise on the food, but the service needs to lighten up
Calling Restaurant Leo ‘Italian’ isn’t quite right. The ingredients are Italian but the very approachable food is its own, lovely thing.
The fake birds in their fake cages high above Sydney’s Angel Place have survived lockdown in fine fettle. Their shrill, welcome tweets signal the post-pandemic health of the CBD’s enduring laneway dining precinct.
To the stalwart original roster of Felix and Ash Street Cellar and China Lane, newer players such as Bar Topa, Mercado and Indu continue to pull in customers from the impersonal surge of George and Pitt Streets. “Have a look down here,” they say, “this is interesting.” Indeed it is. There’s Long Chim, too. And three new, post-Covid players that have all sprung up to answer the question nobody needed to ask: is Sydney still in love with Italian?
Bar Totti’s is yet another cog in the Merivale machine; Ragazzi is a petite, romantic hole-in-the-wall connected to the Darlinghurst laneway bar Love, Tilly Devine. And then there’s Restaurant Leo, the rather curious spawn of two unlikely parents, chefs Federico Zanellato and Karl Firla: one Italian with a penchant for Japanese culinary ideas, which he plies more adventurously at Lumi, the other very much not, but well-known regardless (he ran the inventive Oscillate Wildly for years).
Leo slips comfortably into shoes vacated by the late but probably unlamented Osteria Bacco. The wedge-shaped site is little changed yet undeniably more finished: dominating timber panelling now has smart pieces to complete the wall’s “look”, tables are linen-clothed and the bentwoods cushioned. The terrazzo tile floors have had a polish while some tables are at plush leather banquettes.
Leo deserves a longer run than its predecessor, but calling it “Italian” is only vaguely fair. “Modern Italian” doesn’t really seem right either. So let’s just say a lot of the ingredients are Italian but the very approachable food is its own, lovely thing. It doesn’t shout or scream at you; it has a maturity that probably won’t interest the Instagram crowd. Forget ’em.
And possibly because there are two chefs involved, there are significant personality differences between certain dishes. Take the rustic beauty of a chickpea soup – “ceci” – made with fish stock, whole chickpeas and flakes of Murray cod that’s been turned into an Aussie baccala. In my opinion by far the best use of this fish, ever. Some fresh black truffle finishes this most excellent starter.
Yet another of superb raw scallop slices, fashioned into something resembling a flower, is a thing of great beauty and delicacy, a piece of art. They put it on a fine, salsa-like bed of lemon, zest, capers and shallot, and dress the bivalve meat with olive oil, fried capers and more zest. It is a fabulous dish.
Fresh pasta alla chitarra – characterised by its square profile and unique mouthfeel – is used with a cacio e pepe pecorino/parmesan sauce, glammed up with baby zucchini flowers. It is exactly what it promises: a textbook example of why this slightly sour/creamy and piquant Roman classic has gone viral in recent years.
There’s no compromise on produce: the snapper fillet, seared golden and served on a soft, whole rye grain/vermouth-spiked beurre blanc, is about as good as fresh fish gets, a lovely light and texturally playful take on fish-plus-sauce-plus-starch. An equally straight bat is played with crunchy green beans slathered with bagna cauda. Here a touch of the robust and traditional, there a sprinkle of whimsy. And always with an eye to texture. But what’s happened to bread in Sydney restaurants? Gone, or so it seems.
The panna cotta would be no more (or less) than a great, light, old-school vanilla cream without finely sliced “scales” of pink grape, compressed in lemonade fruit juice and verbena, for a luscious fresh zing on the palate. Together, familiar yet new, a leitmotif for the restaurant as a whole.
Service is Italian, technically strong and yet… I’d like to see the guys (they are all guys) lighten up a bit. Just for a moment, pretend it’s love, not merely service. It’s not like there aren’t other places to eat nearby.
ADDRESS: 2-12/1 Angel Place, Sydney
CONTACT: restaurantleo.com.au
HOURS: Lunch Tue-Fri; Dinner Thurs-Sat
TYPICAL PRICES:Small $24, pasta $30, larger $40, dessert $16
LIKE THIS? TRY…Lulu La Delizia, Perth; Tipo 00, Melbourne
SUMMARY: Laneway renaissance
STARS: 3.5 out of 5
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