In an area dotted with Italian food joints, the husband and wife-run offers a rare taste of old world Italy baked into every pastry, cake and arancino.
Pari is the latest cafe to open along Concord’s lively Majors Bay Road restaurant precinct. The area, historically occupied by Italian immigrants, is all about Neapolitan pizza joints and rustic delicatessens offering the kind of cold cuts that don’t even have English translations.
Here, ageing Italian men sit at outdoor tables, sipping coffee and righteously ignoring the state government’s ‘no smoking’ dictum. There are Italian ladies being taxied to the shop by their husbands because they never learned to drive — a relic of a time when women could run a household and make gnocchi all sorrentia from scratch by dinnertime; driving was for the men.
It’s old-worldly here; Alibrandi-esque and charming because Italians no longer migrate to Australia in the kinds of numbers we saw in the fifties and sixties.
Paolo Gatto began his career, aged 13, as a waiter in his hometown of Catania on Sicily’s east coast. By 17, he was an apprentice chef. He spent the next decade working in Michelin-starred restaurants in Taormina and Venice before making the move to Australia in 2008.
Like so many immigrants before him, he arrived ahead of his wife and young son, working three jobs to set the family up in the Sydney suburb of Five Dock before sending for them.
“I came with a personal mission to bring flavours from those small, underrepresented regions of Sicily to my new home,” says Gatto.
Gatto opened his first restaurant, Gatto Matto, in 2012 and immediately gained recognition for his authentic flavours (think baked olives with breadcrumbs and spaghetti thick with ricotta and eggplant). In 2014, he opened , which quickly became a hit in nearby Cabarita. Pari is an evolution of five years in the business and almost a lifetime spent preparing food.
“In the beginning I was too much of a purist. I didn’t want to cook pasta if it wasn’t al dente. I wanted to use just the right amount of salt I thought a dish needed. It was cocky and I’ve since adjusted.
“I try to be more polite and humble,” he says. “ I’ve learned that that’s important in the hospitality business. I still operate with passion; I’m loud and enthusiastic about traditional ways of doing things. But I’ve learned to hold my tongue when necessary.”
Gatto’s intensity and dedication is on show in Pari’s signature dishes. There’s the granita — creamy gelato sandwiched between a brioche roll (“Because every great granita has to have an excellent brioche”). Both elements are made fresh each day and join forces to mirror a dessert experience birthed in Sicily. You should also try the Cassata Siciliana, an assemblage of sponge, ricotta custard, candied fruit, marzipan and glaze, layered to resemble the great domes of the Italian renaissance.
If you’re after something savoury, look no further than the chippolina. A typical dish of Catania, this parcel is half puff pastry and half pizza dough, stuffed with caramelised onion, fiore di latte, double smoked ham and olives. It’s pure badness and absolutely as good as it sounds.
It’s a bright and pleasant place, with blue and gold fabric panels on the walls and wood finishes throughout, but the food really is what sets Pari apart in an area like Concord. There’s a discerning appetite for quality Italian fare in Sydney, but these regional flavours are less common. Gatto spends more time than many sourcing the right ingredients and doing almost everything himself, just like the old days.
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Mon - Thur 7am - 4pm; Sat -Sun 10am - 10:45pm
83 Majors Bay Rd, Concord NSW
