There’s Something for Everyone at the New Holiday-Ready Cibaria Noosa

In March this year, Broadsheet published an article called “Keeping Up With the Pavonis”. In the nine months since that piece was published, keeping pace with the Pavonis has only become more challenging.

The couple – Alessandro and Anna – are leading the charge for contemporary Italian dining in Sydney with six venues, including Cibaria Manly in the Manly Pacific hotel. Now, they’ve set their sights on Queensland.

Over the weekend, Cibaria Noosa opened in the newly refurbished – and renamed – Elysium Noosa.

“They’ve launched the whole kind of thing in one hit, so it’s gone: boom, beautiful hotel, boom, beautiful restaurant, boom, the bars,” says Anna from the new restaurant.

The Pavonis’ love affair with Noosa has been going strong for 20 years, ever since they were first invited to the Food and Wine Festival. With Cibaria Noosa’s doors now open, the flame of this beachy love affair has never burnt brighter.

“What do they say? Beautiful one day, perfect the next. It’s just a dreamland up here.”

The menu and the kitchen are divided up into a cruderia, cicchetteria, salumeria, antipasteria, bisteccheria, forneria, spaghetteria, contorneria and a pasticceria. All unified by the suffix -ria, the concept is based on an Italian piazza.

“When you live and play in Italy, you go to the piazza and your culinary day is centred around the ‘-rias’. So you might go to the cafeteria for your morning coffee, you go for a walk to the gelateria. We go for dinner at the trattoria. Tomorrow, you might visit the pizzeria … and by using those words, you understand what you’re having … You’re really able to look at that menu and understand what’s coming from where, so it’s like being in a little piazza,” says Anna.

Chef Alessandro’s favourite dishes come from the bisteccheria, which serves wood-grilled proteins like swordfish rib eye with olives, capers, spring onion, lime and chilli; king prawns in a chilli lemon salsa verde; dry-aged lamb rump; and butterflied half spatchcock with salmoriglio dressing. There’s also a hearty section of dry-aged beef served with salsa verde, which starts with a 200-gram ribeye and stretches to a one-kilo bistecca fiorentina.

His signature risottos have also been given a Noosa twist. Anna describes risotto as her husband’s love and specialty. The risotto a grancho is made all’onda-style, with aged Carnaroli rice, Noosa Reds tomatoes and topped with delicate Queensland spanner crab.

A prawn cocktail – served both at Cibaria and Bar Capri, the hotel’s all-day diner – has also had a Pavoni twist that’s clearly captured people’s attention. It’s been the most popular dish in the first few days of service.

“The prawn cocktail is absolutely crazy,” Anna says. “Every second time I see someone in the bar, they’re having prawn cocktail.” The dish goes beyond nostalgia with king prawns, finger lime, cos lettuce cups and a rich salsa aurora.

The 120-seat venue flows from Hastings Street out to the Elysium Noosa pool terrazzo with tables scattered throughout the space. The Pavonis worked alongside Melbourne-based design studio Mitchell & Eades on the design, borrowing elements from the Manly original and “Noosa-fying” it with added hints of pastel blue and rusty yellow.

The restaurant already feels like it’s part of the fabric of the neighbourhood.

If you walked past, it would “feel like we are always open, because we basically are always open,” says Anna. “At six o’clock, there’s staff running around. At seven o’clock, the kitchen [at Bar Capri] fires up.” Cibaria stays open until 11pm.

It’s already welcoming returning guests from all walks of life.

“For lunch yesterday, I had a couple on a first date. Last night, I had a 50th wedding anniversary. Tonight, I’ve got a 17-person 80th birthday party. I had a group of six adults and six kids, absolutely knocking into Negronis and antipasto. It’s so varied. It’s so cliche to say there’s something for everyone.”

But like most cliches, this one rings true.

Cibaria Noosa & Bar Capri

Elysium Noosa Resort, 14-16 Hastings Street Noosa Heads

(07) 5449 4714

Hours:

Cibaria Noosa

Daily 11.30am–11pm

Bar Capri

Daily 7am–late

cibarianoosa.au

@cibarianoosa