Manly Pavilion

This flash new mod-Italian restaurant is perched above the waters of Manly but it's not the views that make this restaurant, it's the chef – Jonathan Barthelmess.

When Barthelmess was at Coast, Time Out gave him a five-star review - his first big rave at the helm of the restaurant. Barthelmess has moved on and is flexing some serious culinary muscle at Manly Pavilion. The flavours are heightened, the dishes are clearer and there's a real sense that this is his restaurant. The bones of this venture are solid, with a kitchen team including Jimmy Parry (last seen in Sydney at Oscillate Wildly). The wine list is huge but interesting with a fair section devoted to natural wines (organic, preservative free, unfiltered and unfined). We counted 86 wines under $70 and every varietal has a couple of wines under $50 which is significant for a venue that's invested millions in its opening. There's also some very drinkable carafes on offer. And although we've never actually been served by the head sommelier Michael Watt, his right hand man, Daniel Fortescue, is highly accomplished with the list.

We want to give this restaurant four stars – the food alone deserves to be sung from the rooftops. But what sours it for us is the service. The money that went into hiring that flock of clipboard-wielding hosts might have been better spent hiring a strong restaurant manager/mâitre d' to wrangle the large team of fairly green waitstaff. Because Manly Pavilion is not cheap. And when you leave the restaurant having forked out $250 for dinner for two, you want to feel like you have had a good time. Call us loopy, but a good time for us doesn't involve waitstaff  taking away our plates at random, explaining the menu has "meat" and "fish" and "pasta" on it, or putting food down and running off without explaining what it is we're eating.

What we're eating, by the way, is very, very good. It's clear the kitchen is firing on all cylinders. While you can pick and choose from the modern Italian menu, Manly Pavilion recommends you try the five-course menu at a fixed price of $88. And we agree. You might start with the buffalo mozzarella from the stuzzichini section, grilled until it's all melty on a lemon leaf, drizzled with a little olive oil. Eat the cheese off the leaf (don't eat the leaf) – it's infused with the lemon oil and tangy. Crumbed white anchovies are crisp on the outside and delicate and briny in the middle, served with a tomato aioli for dipping.

A tangle of cuttlefish and fennel ribbons is sassed up with tissue-paper thin slices of eggplant, fried crisp – it's a dish Barthelmess also used to do at Coast. He has a real gift when it comes to packing a lot of flavour and guts into such elegant looking dishes. Take the veal tartare – so thin the meat looks like ripped silk – garnished with strips of cured egg, a little parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil. Pasta is another strength. A dish of sweet, rich pork ragu is served with thin, satiny pappardelle ribbons. And if you get a chance to try the black pepper risotto with tallegio, do so. Each serve is made to order - a rare thing with risotto in restaurants. The meat dishes, while really nicely executed, are huge. If you were to order, say, the roast suckling pig, consider sharing it.

For dessert there are little fried rice pudding lumps with a gelato made from toasted farro, and fried cocoa ravioli filled with gorgonzola and drizzled with honey. But you know what we loved the most? The lemon drop Gummi bears on the petit-fours platter.

You can see why we're tearing our hair out. Despite all of the above, Manly Pavilion boasts one of the most shambolic floor teams in town. And another thing: when you book, make it clear that you don't want to sit in the ‘Heritage Room' – a weird and characterless appendage off from the main dining room that they should perhaps rename the 'Siberia Room'. Let's hope they can iron out these problems soon, because Manly Pavilion is doing some of the most exciting and tasty food in Sydney at the moment.

Myffy Rigby