Steven Woodburn
If you try telling an Australian that a restaurant’s theme is “red-sauce Italian” expect us to be a touch perplexed. On the other hand, if you tell us it’s fried calamari, pasta alla vodka, enormous crumbed parmies, Negronis and tiramisù? Ah. Then we get it. It’s American Italian. Italian, but with the comfort and calorie factor cranked into overdrive. There’s Italian under there somewhere, but you have to burrow through a ton of parmesan to find it.
“Red-sauce Italian” is the pitch at Vitelli’s Upstairs, which has taken the place of the now defunct Baptist Street Rec Club in the endlessly upbeat Wunderlich Lane precinct in Sydney’s Redfern. And it’s excellent. The slightly cheesy retro pub décor has made way for rich red velour, heavy curtains and candlesticks. The food is saucy and crunchy and gooey and generous. It’s very clear why it seems to have been full from the moment it opened. Start with a round of the porchetta-crusted ribs. That’s right, they’re pork ribs, but why not coat them in more pork; specifically deep-fried pork and fennel mince. They’re as addictive as a bowl of Twisties. “I need to stop eating these or I won’t have room for anything else,” says my dining companion before devouring two more. Stracciatella, too, makes no effort to be dainty; it’s basically a slurp of creamy cheese, sitting in a puddle of perfectly seasoned red sauce. Smoosh it onto a wedge of garlic bread; get a few steps closer to God.
Most of the rest of the menu is about playful excess. There are three types of crumbed Milanese – chicken, veal and pork – a meat menu, if you will, and you can upgrade any of them with a bubbling vodka sauce. The helpings are so huge that the entire table will probably have another crack at the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. After dessert, summon the “amaro basket”, and pick out a flirty little digestivo that’s juicy, medicinal or even aphrodisiacal, depending on your mood.
The walk-in bar is also a party: spaghetti and meatballs, fried lasagne bites and waffle fries, and it hosts a generous aperitivo hour from 4pm to 6pm, Tuesday to Friday. The vegetables aren’t shy here, either. There’s a spicy Caesar salad but the pick of the bunch is the zucchini side dish. Chunky hunks of roasted zucchini on a garlicky almond sauce; its robust flavour more than holds its own against the blockbuster meats and pastas.
Vitelli’s is cosy and clubby and it makes you want to eat as lavishly and lustfully as Tony Soprano at a wake. Block out the chaos of the outside world and feast for the sake of feasting. After all, in turbulent times, don’t we all yearn for the toasty embrace of a molten chicken parm?
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
