Newport has just scored itself brand spankin' new Italian restaurant, Sotto Sopra. The casual diner comes from the Brescian-born-and-raised chef Alessandro Pavoni, who you may know from his other restaurants, Ormeggio at the Spit and Chiosco by Ormeggio.
He's now bringing the flavours of Northern Italy to the insular peninsula. "It's a totally different concept to my other restaurants." Pavoni tells Time Out.
The centrepiece of the trattoria is its woodfire oven, which comes all the way from Italy, "The oven is a Marana – the base turns, so the timber fire has a nice consistent heat and you can control how fast it turns. It travelled by boat from Italy to Melbourne, then all the way up to Newport," he says.
All the mains are cooked in the oven, including the chicken cacciatora, chicken pieces in a cast iron pan with capsicum, sage, cherry tomatoes, capers and green olives, or the Roman style porchetta. There're also lots of choices for veggos too. "The whole eggplant is cooked at a really high temperature, so it's really soft and is then finished with smoked cheddar and Napoli tomatoes. It's like our take on the eggplant parmigiana," explains Pavoni.
The restaurant has been a long term ambition for Pavoni, who first set his sights on the upper Northern Beaches when he arrived in Sydney, just over 15 years ago. "I wanted to live the real Australian beach life – firstly I went to Barrenjoey House and gave them my resume. I only had one big problem back then – I didn't speak one word of English. So I went back to Leichhardt, and learned slowly and now I'm back here and it's my dream life."
