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 A night at the Sopra Café Sopra comes to the inner East – and not a moment too soon for Nick Dent.
I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never been to the original Café Sopra in the Fratelli Fresh store in Danks Street, despite being an arty-farty type who goes to a lot of gallery shows around there. Luckily for me, they’ve now opened one up in Potts Point, which is closer to home – and who am I to refuse a blatant invitation like that?
Jamie and Barry MacDonald opened the first Fratelli Fresh four and a half years ago; the place has a pretty good claim towards being Sydney’s leading providore. The new Fratelli Fresh/Café Sopra occupies the large glassed zone above Woolies that has been the place restaurants have gone to die ever since the old Landmark Parkroyal was turned into Ikon apartments. My guess is the space was simply too big: it always looked empty, even when it wasn’t.
Solution: fill the void with a store selling the best fresh vegetables, olive oils, pasta and cheeses, and plonk an Italian bistro right in the thick of it. Bingo – customers galore. All those baskets full of premium produce help stimulate the appetite anyway, and you can browse the goods while waiting for a table (there’s no reservations, natch).
When C and I show up one evening we are offered the all-Italian wine list while we wait, and given glasses of Monte Campo Pinot Grigio ($6.5) and Sensi Chianti ($7.5) where we stand. There’s something hilarious about standing around in a produce market with a glass of wine in your hand. It makes us feel like those bon vivants of bygone days, Bernard King and Keith Floyd. I wish we’d worn cravats.
By the time we’re seated we aren’t in the market for anything fancy from the blackboard menu; we just want some good pasta. And that’s what we get. In fact, I am in raptures over my fusilli with chilli, anchovy and broccolini ($18). Fragrant with garlic, salty with anchovy, the fusilli are big and bouncy as bedsprings; the chopped green broccolini and red capsicum are a joy to look at and eat.
C’s orecchiette with prawns and salsa verde ($22) are sprinkled with crisp pangrattato, or breadcrumbs. There are plenty of ocean-fresh king prawn pieces in there. All up it’s a perfect combo of creamy, crunchy, soft and al dente.
Simple food, superbly done with the best ingredients imaginable: chef Andy Bunn makes it all seem so simple. You know, it wasn’t so long ago when Potts Point had no really good bistros, nowhere to buy groceries, and no civilised place to drink wine. Now you can get all three at the one address. Progress has been made.
Cafe Sopra
81 Macleay Street, Potts Point
Tel: (02) 9368 6666
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