12 of Sydney’s best hatted Italian restaurants from the Good Food Guide

The Emerald City’s top spots for pasta, pizza and all things pomodoro from the Good Food Guide 2026.

Restaurant trends come and go like Uber Eats McNuggets orders in the night, but Sydney’s love for pasta is eternal. Italian food remains as popular as it was when The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide was launched in 1984, only these days it’s more about gnocco fritto and Sardinian orange wine than saltimbocca and cheap sangiovese. Here are 12 of the best hatted Italian restaurants from the Good Food Guide, from Freshwater to the foot of the Blue Mountains.

This squished Paddington terrace is still firing on its foundational promise: well-priced, intriguing wines, small plates of reliable sharpness and a convivial atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re elbow-to-elbow with a big, happy family. Your first move will always be a sweep of the wine blackboard; followed by a request for guidance from the enthusiastic team who always have a suggestion. You’ll almost certainly want a crudo and a croquette – maybe scallop with lemonade fruit, and mozzarella-stuffed suppli – and that famous pretzel with whipped bottarga, still one of the best bread dishes in town. Pasta could come in the form of tagliatelle bouncing with fat mushrooms, while dessert could be a crisp tarte tatin, if you somehow manage to skip the tiramisu.

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If you’re not ordering the roast chicken and mortadella agnolotti in brodo as a mid-course, please see yourself out. If not for the chubby pasta knots bobbing around in that golden, perfectly clarified, lip-stickingly unctuous broth, then for the nonna-fabulous tureen it’s served in. The newest in a line of hits (Bar Copains, Bessie’s and Alma’s) from chefs Morgan McGlone and Nathan Sasi, this sweet, buzzy Italian restaurant lives on the old Bar Vincent site. Order a Campari and blood orange and an orb of focaccia with smooth house-made ricotta, then make your way through a battery of flavour bombs, from anchovy-stuffed zucchini fritters to the sweetest eggplant alla Norma.

Among Windsor’s sandstone architecture and riverboats, Cricca is quietly reframing suburban dining. It has the warmth of an Italian local, with welcoming smiles, staff telling stories of Mediterranean fishing trips and walls lined with black-and-white memories of Rome. But next-generation chef-owner Alessio Nogarotto, alongside childhood friend and head chef Giles Gabutina, has taken the concept to another level. There’s flatbread rising and oysters roasting in the wood-fired oven, shelves crowd