Amarcord Ristorante Italiano

Authentic dishes have Joanna Savill feeling nostalgic.

If the restaurant name seems familiar, it's because the late Italian master director, Federico Fellini, used it as a film title for the evocative, autobiographical Amarcord, set in his home town of Rimini on Italy's north-east coast. The seminal cookery author Marcella Hazan - whose Classic Italian Cookbook of the 1970s was the kitchen bible of the day - took the same title for her memoir, published a couple of years back.

Both Fellini and Hazan grew up in Italy's Romagna region: she in Cesenatico, not far from Rimini. The word "amarcord" means "I remember" in Romagnolo dialect and is loaded with nostalgia and the melancholy of recollection. Just to compound the wistfulness, this little slip of a restaurant boasts a full wall-length black-and-white photograph of an Italian town square on one wall and a quote (also in Romagnolo) from Fellini's screenwriter, the poet Tonino Guerra, on the other. The square, we find out later, is Piazza del Popolo in the town of Cesena, near Rimini and, yes, in Romagna. And the quote - well, it's a bit harder to explain. Without going too far into it, it's the first line of a famous Guerra poem, referring to the walls he scribbled on as a child. Here, well, the words are scribbled on a wall.

I have my own waves of nostalgia coming here. My formative food years were spent in Bologna, capital of the official administrative region of Emilia-Romagna. It was there I discovered tortellini, tagliatelle, ragu Bolognese and fat, custard-filled hot doughnuts called bomboloni, sourced steaming hot late at night from the back door of a bakery under the city's famous porticos. Weekends at the seaside were spent eating three-course seafood lunches, with chilled white wine, at a beachside trattoria, then sleeping on a shaded deckchair on the sand. It was enough to convince an already food-minded university student that there was no shame in being food-mad. A whole city, a whole region, a whole nation (and the rest of the world) already were.

Our waiter, who turns out to be a co-owner, Vincenzo Biondini, laughs dismissively, however, when I mention Emilia-Romagna. To him, and long-time friend and now business partner, chef Andrea Riva, Emilia (and Bologna) don't count. It's Romagna that is the inspiration for their first combined venture. Both have good Sydney-Italian restaurant pedigrees - Biondini was co-owner of the Rosso Pomodoro pizzeria in Balmain and Riva cooked at the well-respected (and now defunct) Zeffirelli in Pyrmont. They opened Amarcord last December along with their partners, Simona Focaccio and Kristi Bonnici, who helped with the simple but effective fitout - lots of natural woods, tiles, primrose-creamy walls and a pretty little walkway to the loos.

Given the owners' reputation, and the restaurant name, it is hardly surprising to find the room full of Italians. Italians from Italy, mostly. They're all ordering Andrea's piadina - a soft, floury flatbread sold on every street corner in Romagna. It's traditionally made with lard but this version, using oil and a secret leavening agent, is less rich but even more delicious, served hot in a brown paper bag to keep it that way.

There's a bit of a brown-paper theme, actually. Natural-wood chairs, tiled floors (rather serious noise levels on a busy Saturday night) and a rough brown-paper menu are all part of the look. And then there's the pasta.

If you're eating Romagnolo, you must have cappelletti (filled pasta ''hats''). Andrea's are silky, slippery, sinful mouthfuls served with melted butter and truffled pecorino. His tagliolini are great, too - ribbons of al dente pasta served with an almost fish soup-like quantity of tomatoey seafood. We also see a bowl of strozzapreti (semolina pasta twists) go past, with smoked salmon and cream.

We have a gooey-centred parmesan ''flan'' - a cheese tart, really - with dots of sticky grape and sangiovese reduction, adding a balsamic-like sweetish tang; cuttlefish with peas (so Italian seaside) and a fritto misto tricolore - prawns, calamari and zucchini flash-fried (more flashbacks).

It's probably lucky, given my nostalgia trip, that they don't have those evil-wonderful custard bomboloni on the menu, although I could easily picture sneaking down the side passage in the later hours after service to snaffle a few direct from Andrea's kitchen. Instead, there's an almond and chocolate tart with plum sauce and apple cake with pine nuts and ricotta. All very Italian. Or Romagnolo. And very nice either way. It's the kind of food memories are made of. OK, sorry, corny ending. But I'm feeling a touch sentimental.

Food Excellent Romagna style, especially house-made pasta.

Service Friendly, personal, helpful, chatty.

Atmosphere Very noisy. Very Italian.

Value Good. Entrees and pasta $16-$18, mains $24-$26.

Recommended dishes Piadina in a brown paper bag, cappellettiwith butter and truffle pecorino, parmesan flan, cuttlefish with peas, almond and choc tart with plum sauce.