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The pasta might have caught your attention, but there are other delights at Attenzione!

Redfern’s newest wine bar-restaurant is big on personality and flavour, plus great cocktails, mystery wine and head-scratching dish names.

Callan Boys
Callan Boys

Attention please: There’s a hot new Italian-ish restaurant-wine bar in Redfern.
1 / 9Attention please: There’s a hot new Italian-ish restaurant-wine bar in Redfern.Jennifer Soo
Go-to dish: Grilled beef tongue, jicama and salted chilli.
2 / 9Go-to dish: Grilled beef tongue, jicama and salted chilli.Jennifer Soo
Free-range chicken with green chicory, horseradish and goji berry sauce.
3 / 9Free-range chicken with green chicory, horseradish and goji berry sauce.Jennifer Soo
Gabagool plate (with fougasse bread on the side).
4 / 9Gabagool plate (with fougasse bread on the side).Jennifer Soo
Sticky-date cake with pecan praline and creme fraiche.
5 / 9Sticky-date cake with pecan praline and creme fraiche.Jennifer Soo
The bar, with its spacious counter, is the place to be.
6 / 9The bar, with its spacious counter, is the place to be.Jennifer Soo
Charcoal shaved calamari with cabbage and finger lime.
7 / 9Charcoal shaved calamari with cabbage and finger lime.Dexter Kim; supplied
Mandilli with saffron butter and bottarga.
8 / 9Mandilli with saffron butter and bottarga.Dexter Kim; supplied
The XL “pico” pasta.
9 / 9The XL “pico” pasta.Dexter Kim; supplied

Good Food hat15/20

Italian$$

Is there a food more fun to say than “gabagool”? “Pamplemousse” and “periwinkle” probably come a close second and third, and everyone loves a good “baba ghanoush”, but surely nothing beats “gabagool”. Stop reading now and have a crack in your best Adam Sandler. What a hoot. It’s an Italian-Americanisation of pork cold-cut capicola, by the way (Sopranos fans know), and you can scarf down a whopping platter of the stuff at Redfern’s newest wine bar and restaurant.

Gabagool plate (pictured with fougasse bread on the side).
Gabagool plate (pictured with fougasse bread on the side).Jennifer Soo

Attenzione! opened a few weeks ago at the site formerly home to The Sunshine Inn. Four youngish mates are running the show – Felix Colman, Toby Stansfield, Toby Davis and Dexter Kim – and the joint is designed, according to the press release, to channel backstreet Paris bistros and regional Italian enotecas. And, wouldn’t you know it, it does.

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But Attenzione! also feels very Redfern Now. A second-date spot with honeyed light, natural wine and framed photographs of leathered, sunbaking Italians. A place for wet martinis and hand-cut chips ($15). A house of Talking Heads, pasta and cured meat.

The owners could have listed the $22 plate of gabagool as “coppa”, its more common name in Australia, but where’s the joy in that?

The joint is designed to channel backstreet Paris bistros and Italian enotecas. And, wouldn’t you know it, it does.

Some of Attenzione’s more enigmatic ingredients and dish names are also a nifty way to get guests interacting with the informed staff and asking questions like, “What the heck is this ‘Pico XL’ for $30?”

“That’s our oversized version of pici, a fat and chewy handrolled pasta from Siena,” is the answer you might receive. “It looks like a single strand of spaghetti that’s really let itself go, and we change up its sauce every few days. At the moment, we’re serving it with capers and a fruity Amatriciana.”

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“Okay, sounds great. We have to get it.”

You probably don’t, though. It’s an eye-catching dish (made for social media, perhaps) but the texture soon becomes a bit of a stodge slog.

I’m way more into the mandilli di seta ($34) – al dente handkerchief-style pasta glossed with butter and humming with an anchovy flavour not dissimilar to Vegemite. A last-second grating of lemon zest adds spark, and although I’ve known bowls of All-Bran that have looked more interesting, you’ve got to respect the restraint to not dress it up with finger lime or other jazz-hand garnishes.

Go-to dish: Grilled beef tongue, jicama and salted chilli.
Go-to dish: Grilled beef tongue, jicama and salted chilli.Jennifer Soo

Stansfield leads the kitchen and his grilled beef tongue ($27) alone is worth booking a spot at the bar for. (Tables exist, but they can be a little too cosy; give me the spacious counter and easy amaro access instead.) The ribbon-thin slices of tongue practically vibrate with flavour, thanks to an oil-rich mix of garlic, ginger and chilli salted for up to three weeks, while small discs of turnip-like jicama provide refreshment and crunch.

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Because it’s state law that every natural wine bar must now feature chicken skin or fat or both on the menu, there are super-crisp crackers of dehydrated chook skin sandwiching smoked trout pâté ($10 each). Highly tasty gear, albeit difficult to crunch down on without making a mess of creamed fish.

Meanwhile, a crusty lattice of fougasse bread ($10) is on hand to ferry that coppa, or soak up the long-flavoured oils left over from melting taleggio cheese and soft-cooked leeks covered in a blizzard of fresh black truffle ($34).

Free-range chicken with green chicory, horseradish and goji berry sauce, pictured with hand-cut chips (bottom right).
Free-range chicken with green chicory, horseradish and goji berry sauce, pictured with hand-cut chips (bottom right).Jennifer Soo

Calamari with chargrilled napa cabbage ($26) sounds promising on paper, but needs more acid and tang. Chicken breast ($42) has enticingly wrinkled, golden, lightly charred skin – and I dig its vibrant green chicory, horseradish and goji berry sauce – but, at the end of the day, it’s hard to get too excited about chicken breast. I’m sorry, gym people.

There’s a bloody good steak diane ($55) though, and a $50 pork chop deftly grilled on the bone and bolstered by a balanced scallop cream that’s not too scallop-y.

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Despite a few glitches here and there, Attenzione! is a place I want to return to again. Great cocktails. Terrific wine. Crown Lager on the beer list, ha!

And a big thumbs up for the opportunity to guess the country and grape of a daily-changing mystery wine, and enjoy the glass for free if you’re right (otherwise cough up $20). My Montepulciano guess was off the mark last week (it was a Barbera, the Monte of the north), but hey, you know, speaking of fun words to say …

The low-down

Vibe: Inviting Italian-ish wine bar that’s big on personality and flavour

Go-to dish: Grilled beef tongue, jicama and salted chilli ($27)

Drinks: Sake, amaro and whisky bulk out a wide-ranging list of independent Australian, French and Italian winemakers, with a particular focus on nebbiolo

Cost: About $170 for two, excluding drinks

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine

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Callan BoysCallan Boys is editor of SMH Good Food Guide, restaurant critic for Good Weekend and Good Food writer.

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Original URL: https://www.watoday.com.au/goodfood/sydney-eating-out/the-pasta-might-have-caught-your-attention-but-there-are-other-delights-at-attenzione-20240829-p5k6eq.html