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There is no chance you will not have a conversation with Dom or Sara Ruggeri, husband-and-wife co-owners of Dom Panino, when visiting their two-month-old Italian corner paninoteca in Leichhardt.

Their welcome – warm, full of menu suggestions and passionate discussion of ingredients, tastes and dish subtleties – is part of the reason to visit this sorbet pink-edged and dark orange tiled cafe sitting sparkling fresh and alive with fans in Sydney’s Little Italy.

“Food is everything for Italians, especially Italian family,” Ruggeri says, emerging from the kitchen, with a wide grin. “It’s how we all come together, how we celebrate. It is family.”

Dom Panino began life as a popular food truck stationed at Breakfast Point, a community mainstay during lockdown. But, Ruggeri, a longtime local whose family emigrated from Sicily to Leichhardt, snapped up the Marion Street premises for a bricks-and-mortar paninoteca, or sandwich shop.

The focus is on paninis – there are 14 to choose from – but you can also pick from four pasta dishes, a wide-ranging breakfast menu, panelle, fries, salads and pastries.

‘For your grandson to want to learn how to cook, to pass on the family’s traditions, that’s the proudest day of your life.’

Dom Ruggeri

Many dishes are named after family members or Italian-influenced wordplay and famous figures. Wagyu Lookin’ At, Mortabella, Carmela, Joey Vodka, Rocky, Nonna’s Nostalgia. The latter – a thick, beautifully chewy panini layered with slow-cooked pork and veal bolognaise, smoked fior di latte, parmigiana dop and rocket – is a mouth-watering marvel.

Porchetta-About-It makes you laugh until you can’t stop eating its exceptional bread-encased mix of slow-roasted pork, crackling, eggplant paste, pecorino crema and Kewpie chilli mayo.

Equally, the juicily luxuriant eggplant, capsicum, onions and sweet-and-sour tomato reduction filling the Serafina, named after Ruggeri’s mother, who is also cooking in the kitchen.

The pork-and-veal bolognese, made from a recipe Ruggeri will never divulge, might seem the simplest here but it is a deeply rich, fragrant and velvety marvel that blushes like red cheeks on fat pasta.

On finishing its excellence, a woman at the next table leans over. “It’s good isn’t it,” she whispers. “I’m having the panelle. Absolutely amazing chickpea fritters.”

Ruggeri’s love for food came early. Aged 10, his first job was cutting pizzas and taking the money at his uncle’s pizzeria. But he had already spent hours watching his nonna cooking a wide range of food for family dinners. One day, as a teenager, he asked her to teach him her recipes and kitchen techniques.

“For your grandson to want to learn how to cook, to pass on the family’s traditions, that’s the proudest day of your life,” Ruggeri says.

When Nonna Maria, a spry 87-year-old and regular visitor to Dom Panino, arrives today, word spreads among diners. One woman, still holding her nearly-finished caponata, shakes Maria’s hand in excitement.

“I am so proud of my family,” Maria says.

“And, you know, Dom teaches me as much about food as I have taught him.”

Tradies, arriving on the dot of midday, sit outside wolfing down Tutti Salumi paninis, each bulging with double-smoked ham, salami, mortadella, provolone dolce and pickled mushrooms, along with truffle shoestring fries and yellow cans of Sopra Sicilian blood orange fizzy pop.

Men in tight suits drink espresso at the standing coffee bar lining the front window. Locals and children sit chatting while devouring bombolone, round doughnut bombs with rich chocolate filling, and sugar-rolled, deep-fried twirls of zuccherato brimming with ricotta.

There is also a good range of Italian wine, beer and cocktails, and gluten-free dish variations are available.

At the back of Dom Panino, in a dining area called the family room, framed photos on the wall show generations of Ruggeri’s family, working on fishing trawlers, gathering for marriages and celebrating communions and anniversaries. Several are taken in the same room, decades ago, when it was a different restaurant.

“I celebrated my Holy Communion here,” Ruggeri says. “And my brother had his Confirmation here, too.

“There’s a photo of my whole immediate family at the exact same window the picture is hung beside, and a beautiful photo of my four grandparents saying cheers at the door it’s hung next to. So, we called it the family room because I just love my heritage and I love my family.”