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“I’m heading to Wollongong for the day. Where’s good to eat?” is a question I must be asked at least once a fortnight. Why do I have so many friends travelling to the Illawarra? I suppose they’re just really into coal and surf beaches.

If it’s a natural wine-obsessed mate who’s asking – the one with a thing for house-made XO sauce and parfait on doughnuts – I’ll recommend the smoky, ferment-forward set menu at Babyface Kitchen. For anyone simply keen for a good red, some pasta and a nice spot to sit, it’s Restaurant Santino all the way.

I imagine most Santino newcomers must stop near the entrance, check Google Maps and scan the surrounding laneway up and down before asking, “Are you sure this is the place?” It’s in a retail mall of no architectural importance, not far from a Just Jeans and Platypus Shoes. I usually like restaurants to have a sense of place, but management has made the right decision to hide the outside world once you’re seated.

“For a good red, some pasta and a nice spot to sit, it’s Restaurant Santino all the way.”

And what nice seats they are. In lieu of windows, there are tabletop candles and warm light from an open kitchen. There’s marble and brass and dark-timber booths, and a dirty martini ($24) feels like the first order of business. It’s the sort
of slick trattoria you’re more likely to find in New York than Naples and while Sydney has at least two dozen versions of the exact same concept, Wollongong has one.

Brothers Fred and Kevin Duarte opened Restaurant Santino in 2021, buoyed by the success of Kneading Ruby, their nearby pizzeria. Chef Jake Rosen’s menu is all modern-Italian comfort, meaning lots of things to swipe bread through, a few
house-made pastas and some weighty mains.

The $140 bistecca is a bit too weighty and pricey for our table, but a roast spatchcock with pine nuts ($42) is so fat and juicy, there’s not much need for steak anyway. The bird is pan-fried in garlic oil for extra-golden skin and comes to the table sticky with raisins and sweet-sour agrodolce sauce. With a couple of small plates to start, one couple could share the spatchcock and call it a substantial dinner.

Baccala mantecato ($14) – Venetian whipped salt cod – is the right garlic-loaded snack to kick things off, and a good lug of parsley oil graces the dip with direct, condensed flavour.

The same emerald-green oil is pooled around a vegan “ricotta” made from almonds, in turn topped with asparagus and mandolined honeydew melon ($22). Peak-season heirloom tomatoes are layered across a creamy tonnato (tuna) sauce ($20). It’s all smart, simple stuff I’d happily return to, and service is generally top-notch.

Under-seasoned roast potatoes ($12) are the only letdown across a Sunday lunch.

Meanwhile, fennel stock-bolstered polenta is the bed for submissive (but still bitey) nubs of grilled octopus and pickled carrots drizzled with ’nduja oil ($24).

Thick and crusty sourdough with roast-garlic butter ($8) comes in handy at this juncture. And that bottle of red? Plenty of options exist across a mid-sized wine list, such as a spicy 2023 Gentle Folk “Vin de Sofa” ($75) made predominantly with Adelaide Hills sangiovese.

A glass of 2018 Anthony Thévenet Beaujolais ($23) travels easily between that octopus and a heaving bowl of pappardelle with long-simmered, beef-shin ragu ($32) and “parmesan foam”, which is really more of a cream, but delicious nonetheless.

Dessert-wise, there’s a bloody good vanilla and rhubarb panna cotta glossed with olive oil ($14), and a damn fine syrup-soaked orange cake ($14). Both sweets might have you asking to see the one-page amaro and brandy list.

So why am I telling you about a two-year-old restaurant in Wollongong? Partly because I can now copy and paste this review next time someone asks me where to eat in the region, but also because Wollongong is currently experiencing a food and wine boom. You really should go.

Roy’s Restobar opened close to Santino in November, for instance, and its raw snapper with hot mustard is the most exciting wine-bar crudo I’ve eaten in a long time. Black Cockatoo serves killer cocktails. Opus Coffee’s bagel with house-smoked salmon is the kind of brunch you could eat three days in a row and Ain’t Nonna’s offers more in the way of cracking pasta and roast chook.

I should also mention Rosie’s Proper Fish & Chips in nearby Coledale, now frying local potatoes in beef dripping.

The state’s third-largest city is certainly worth building a Saturday around, but a long weekend would be so much better.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine