jamie's italian kitchen, sydney cbd

Heard about Jamie's Italian opening last year and was full excited about it. About two days after its opening, I heard about it's atrociously long two hour lines and became ... less excited about it. Now about a year later, when things have died down just a little, we've decided to try it out! We arrived earlier just to be safe about the lines since we didn't want to wait. (And we didn't have to!)

jamie's italian:


italian bread selection (on the house):

Homemade rosemary focaccia, Italian grissini, crispy "music bread" & ciabatta from our bakery. All served with Rylstone extra virgin olive oil & aged balsamic. Bread was very nice with soft centres and slightly crispy crust. But we weren't given grissini (maybe it was an accident).
The restaurant looks really small and cramped but it's surprisingly more spacious than it looks. It extends to the back where there is an open kitchen and where the toilets are. There are more seats upstairs. Would be very dimly lit without the natural lighting coming in through the top. We were seated right next to the bread table and wine bar - at the first round four seater table.

crispy squid ($12.00):

Fried squid with garlicky mayo & lemon and a wedge of lemon. Debated over crispy stuffed risotto balls and crispy squid. But when the waitress told us the risotto balls were served in plates of three, we decided on squid. The 'garlicky mayo' in fact just tastes like garlic sauce. The small squid pieces were had a very thin but surprisingly crispy batter. Oh that crunchy goodness.

famous polenta chips ($8.50):

Crispy fried with rosemary and parmesan. First time trying polenta chips. The golden exterior is pleasantly crisp white the interior is extremely tender and soft. Tastes a bit bland almost kind of like a new variety of tofu but spongey and cheesey. Not recommended for everyone but still nice.

wild rabbit tagliolini - large ($23.00):

Slow-cooked McLeay Valley rabbit ragu with garlic and herbs, mascarpone and Amalfi lemon. I dont' usually eat rabbit but the waitress kept telling us that it was a superb choice so we ended up ordering it.  The meat was much more tender than when I last had it. This had the largest 'portion' given - we ordered large black angel spaghetti and prawn linguine but it didn't seem as plentiful as this. Very rich and creamy - and also very well received.

black angel spaghetti - large ($22.00):

Squid Ink pasta, scallops, garlic, chilli, anchovies, wine and capers. Although the noodles were slightly undercooked, and the scallops seemed a little overcooked the sauce was great - clear winner of the meal.

prawn linguine - large ($26.50):

Juicy pan-fried garlicky Spencer Gulf prawns served with tomatoes, chilli, rocket and fennel. Not a big fan of tomato based pastas or rocket and fennel so this didn't really suit me but that's just me. Friend who ordered it absolutely loved it, polishing every last bit of the dish.

Waitresses were super nice but service was slow. Also I noticed that they actually give you a nice amount of seafood (in this case, prawn and scallops) in your pasta which is good. Reasonable pricing but students like myself would probably find it overpriced - spent about $25.00 dollars. which is about $1.50 then what we should have paid because we wanted "distilled water" but the waitress probably heard us wrong and gave us still water which we had to pay $7.00 for.

jamie's italian kitchen
107 pitt street
sydney NSW 2000
t: (02) 8240 9000
w: http://www.jamieoliver.com/au/italian/