Trattoria Bastardo

Trattoria Bastardo is a 60-seat classic Italian eatery and sequel to the Surry Hills favourite Bastardo. It’s also possibly the restaurant with the most-fun-to-say name in Sydney.

The restaurant has a bar with a dedicated aperitivo hour suited to afternoons spent lingering over an impressive vermouth selection, as well as spritzes and Negronis. There, you might order snacks designed just for the buzzy aperitivo hour – crispy salt and pepper calamari, cured meats and burrata – before getting to the heartier dishes that Bastardo devotees know and love.

Next, move onto its house-made pasta – there are around six types on offer here. There might be a conchiglie with zucchini, which is cooked until it collapses in a sweet and creamy sauce, and finished with a luxurious swirl of stracciatella. As well as rigatoni with a ragu of coarsely minced pork cooked down with ’nduja, garlic and white wine. It’s finished with chilli oil for an extra kick.

The desserts, like everything else, run classic: a panna cotta, tiramisu, house-made gelato, or cheese for the umami-fixated.

Porteno Restaurant Group (also Humble and Wyno x Bodega) is behind the 60-seat eatery. (Porteno co-owners Joe Valore and Elvis Abrahanowicz also co-own Continental Deli.)

Stylist Sarah Doyle, the driving force behind the look and feel of all the group’s restaurants (and wife of Abrahanowicz), brought in bold paintings by Mikey Freedom of plump tomatoes, flaked out whole fish on a plate, and a tangle of spaghetti on a fork. The walls are painted a deep green, star-shaped lights stud the ceiling, and the leather banquettes are long-lunch-level cosy.