Monday is the night that restaurants often close in Sydney, so a fantastic option is to wander to the new Westfield in the CBD and try some of the hot new restaurants that are open. We chose Spiedo, mostly because of Allesandro Pavoni’s appearance on this season of Masterchef. A brute of a man, reducing the young women contestants to helpless giggles, he made for great TV and seemed like a great chef. His one-hatted restaurant Ormeggio at the Spit is on my restaurants-t0-try list, but is a little farther away than the CBD.
I also love the idea of regional cuisines rather than national ones – so, not an Italian restaurant, but one that is specially dedicated to the cuisine of Lombardy.
They’ve only been open a month or so, but it’s sad to see a restaurant with so many waitstaff and chefs, and so few tables filled. But it guaranteed us perfect service. The friendly and easy-going waiter guided us through the menu and was basically top-notch.
I often ‘think’ about the food that I’m eating at a restaurant: is it tasty? is it interesting? it is good value? But food like this, the thoughts flew from my mind. I made repeated garbled sounds of gustatory pleasure, with the occasional eloquent, “this is sooooo good.” The veal & pork filled casoncelli, burnt butter, sage and crispy pancetta was ridiculously good. I’ve had similar dishes before (sometimes even too rich with the burnt butter) but this was perfect. 
The pasta had both the excellent chewy home-made texture with a crispness from being momentarily fried.
S. was pleased with his slow cooked lamb rump with silverbeet, pinenuts and raisins. It looked prettier on the plate than this Iphone 4 photo makes it out to be.
I had the special of the house, the ‘Spiedo (which means spit) Bresciano con polenta’ which is a Brescian slow spit roast with pork ribs, pork scotch fillet, quail, and duck, served with a soft Storo polenta.
So basically, four kinds of meat stuck together on a skewer and roasted for 5 hours I think it was. It was like a horizontal turducken!
To finish, a mixed dessert plate with a deconstructed Tiramisu, strawberry sorbet, and oh, I think it was a cake with espresso.
And then to top it off, finally, a little taste of grappa. What’s not to love about a restaurant that has a grappa tray on wheels.
The restaurant is not cheap with mains at 35 each, and starters between 20-24. But they have a pre-theatre menu from 6-7:30 with 2 courses for $45 which seems a very good deal.
