You Don’t Need a Special Reason To Go to Pilu at Freshwater Anymore

“Happy birthday,” beams Marilyn Annecchini, once again, as a group of guests enter her restaurant for a sunny winter lunch. This is maybe the third or fourth time today that she’s welcomed a group marking a special occasion. Pilu at Freshwater only opened half an hour ago, and the dining room is already packed with anniversaries, reunions and milestone birthdays.

That’s just what you do here. And it’s been that way ever since 2004, when Annecchini and her husband, chef Giovanni Pilu, opened their Sardinian restaurant in a heritage house by the shores of Freshwater Beach.

The beautiful dining room. The meticulous and charming food. Those serene views of the coastal scrub and the sand and the ocean. They make you feel like you need to be commemorating something. That you need to deserve to be here.

When Pilu the restaurant turned 20 last year, the team celebrated at Pilu. Because where else in Freshwater would you go for such an important birthday?

But at an age when most restaurants would lean on their eminence, stick to playing the hits, and just rely on reputation and regulars, Pilu is in the mood to shake things up.

“Twenty years was always the goal, and then we regroup and see what happens,” says chef Pilu. “So we’re changing – a little bit – what Pilu has been for 20 years, offering some different menus with reasonable prices so that anyone can come anytime, not just a special occasion once a year.”

If you’ve been coming to Pilu for a long time, don’t worry: the à la carte and degustation menus aren’t going anywhere, they’ve just been bolstered by a number of new deals.

There’s now a $130 abbreviated five-course set menu option accompanying the existing seven-course menu, four-course Sunday’s Table dinners for $90, and 50 per cent off the Gallura set menu each Friday in June. But the most compelling new menu – particularly for the Pilu-curious – is the $65 Pranzo Veloce lunch, which runs from Wednesday to Friday.

It's a punchy little two-courser that lets you investigate and speed date one of Sydney’s iconic restaurants and leave with a full stomach and wallet.

For an entree, choose between an insalata autunnale – a chorus of seasonal vegetables sitting on whipped Persian feta – and culurgiones, Sardinia’s answer to ravioli.

Culurgiones are a staple of the Italian island, and they’re a staple of Pilu’s. “One day, we actually sat down, did the numbers, and worked out that we make 20,000 of these every year,” Pilu says. This specific rendition is inspired by Pilu’s favourite Sardinian rosticerias – they come stuffed with roasted potato, studded with crispy chicken skin and bathed in jus.

Pilu wanted it to smell and taste like a chicken shop. Mission accomplished. Maybe Chargrill Charlie’s finally has some northern beaches competition.

Mains present another difficult decision. Both the roasted half spatchcock and the celeriac millefoglie – which puts veggie lasagnes to shame – are excellent options. It’s worth splitting all four between you and a dining partner instead of having to choose.

Pranzo Veloce might be just a small snapshot of the full Pilu experience, but it’s more than enough to convert first-timers into future regulars.

“And that’s what we’re trying to do with this,” Pilu says. “You can come in and have lunch on a weekday, then if you want that degustation for your anniversary, you can come back.”

More guests keep ascending the Pilu stairs for lunch. A lot of them are here with a milestone to mark. But plenty more have come for absolutely no reason at all, except for the fact that it’s a beautiful Sydney day. And when that happens, there are still few better places to be than this Sardinian restaurant in a beach house by the sand at Freshwater.

Pilu at Freshwater is an Icon on The Hot List , our guide to Sydney’s most essential food and drink experiences, updated weekly.