Rustico Sardo

Leichhardt is long recognised as the place to go to find an Italian restaurant in Sydney, but the Norton Street drag is far from the only place to pick up an authentic feed from the bel paese in the Inner West. The neighbouring suburbs of Five Dock and Haberfield are similarly stuffed with eateries from Italy, and if you find yourself on Great North Road, then Rustico Sardo where you need to be. Their emphasis is on fresh, unprocessed produce, and traditional, time-honoured Italian cooking techniques. Book a table now.

Italian Sydney is centred around the Inner West, and from the red sauce and checkered tablecloths of Leichhardt to the Great North Road in Five Dock, you can find most of the city’s Italian people: and thus, its best Italian restaurants. One such place is Rustico Sardo on the aforementioned Great North Road, where they dispense with the checkered tablecloth schtick – or whatever the Italian for schtick is – and instead focus on the menu, which is filled with organic and authentic fare to keep the punters coming back to Five Dock time and again.

The chefs on Great North Road certainly strive to put the rustic back into Rustico Sardo. They take classics of the Italian genre – antipasti, panna cotta, seafood specialities – and source the finest ingredients possible to populate them. We’d recommend their malloreddus – gnocchi, Sardinian-style – with meat sauce and Pecorino cheese, accompanied by the finest that their wine list has to offer. Rustico Sardo may be slightly more Sardinia than Sydney, but that’s what we want in our Italian restaurants, is it not? Reserve a table and head out to Five Dock to find out.