It feels good to be out of lockdown and back exploring the many eateries across Sydney. With newfound appreciation for the suburbs given the 5km constraints we underwent in Sydney, this week I headed to the waterside suburb of Meadowbank to try out Italian Street Kitchen. Tucked away amongst high-rise apartments, the restaurant felt very local, a place where you’d go if you lived nearby, rather than a ‘destination suburb’. Nevertheless, social distancing in mind, we welcomed the wide, spacious restaurant that was cheerily decorated with patterned tiles and plenty of plants.

Location: 10 Rothesay Ave, Meadowbank NSW 2112
Price: $134 for four people, no drinks
Website: https://butcherandthefarmer.com/au/sydney/meadowbank/

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Melissa: 3/5, seems like the larger the menu the more chance for error when it comes to italian eateries

For starters we ordered the meatballs with flatbread and eggplant filled arancini. The meatballs were fairly stock-standard, much like the ones you would be recreating in your home kitchen but the flatbread was warm, salty and crispy and went perfectly well with the sauce.

The arancini balls were delicious and filled with cheese, eggplant and tomato and topped with crispy garlic chips. Overall a great starter dish.

The first main we ordered was the lamb casarecce. I love this pasta shape but to me it didn’t feel home made at all. The lamb was soft and tender but the pasta was too al dente and the underlying sauce was not well balanced and leaned on the sour/acidic side. Overall it was an okay dish but I’ve definitely had much better for similar price points.

Next pasta dish of the night was the classic pumpkin ravioli in brown butter and sage, topped with chilli and a crumb. This was served slightly lukewarm (suspect the plate wasn’t warmed up) and a bit lacking in flavour. The sauce and filling seemed to be fine but the pasta was too thick. It was chewy and undercooked due to the thickness of the dough. The chilli was a nice touch and gave the pasta an interesting kick but overall the thick pasta dough let the dish down.

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The pizzas we ordered were probably the strongest mains of the night – the Diavola pizza was a tomato based salami pizza, topped with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, cheese and spinach. The buffalo margherita was exactly that. The base and crust was nicely done in their wood fired oven.

Overall, the food was fairly average but the service and ambience in quiet waterside suburbia was nice. The pizzas are probably a safer bet here than the pastas (we didn’t order any of their other mains) and they also have a large menu so plenty of other options to choose from. All in all, I was rather disappointed by the quality of the food. It reminded me a lot of what has gradually happened to Fratelli Fresh in the city. Definitely not worth the prices, but that being said there seems to be a lack of quality Italian eateries outside of the CBD and inner city in Sydney that places like this seem to fill.