La Vucciria

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, where would restaurants be without their cliches? The French bistro with its paper-over-cloth tables, the Chinese with its hanging lanterns, the Italian restaurants with a wall of nostalgic black-and-white photographs of the old country; we know them all.

Restaurant critics, too, are just as capable of clichedom, what with menus that ''tick all the boxes'' and have ''something for everyone'', amid exhortations to ''wash it down with'', and ''save room for''. I've done 'em all at some point.

To be fair, nothing is a cliche when it's your first restaurant and you've never done any of the above before. So, in spite of the deja vu, La Vucciria (pronounced vooch-a-ree-a) is a really sweet set-up, in a pushing-our-buttons sort of way.

As well as the black-and-white photographs of the old La Vucciria market in Palermo, the dark and moody space features a stool-lined bar, cushy banquettes down one wall, bentwood chairs, bare tables and dramatically slatted wooden ceiling lights. Instead of the lipstick-scrawled mirror of predecessor Morgan McGlone's Flinders Inn, there is now a floor-to-ceiling blackboard menu, reminiscent of Fratelli Paradiso, Cafe Sopra, Vini, et al. (Et al? Is that not a cliche too? Then away with you. But … away with you … is that not a cliche too? Aaaarrrgh.)

Then something fresh happens. While contemplating a pre-dinner drink, I am given a little bowl of plump green olives. Soon after, golden fingers of fried polenta. Then a couple of slices of grilled bread topped with a few cherry tomatoes, brought by the chef and co-owner, Fabio Alacqua. It seems I've landed in the middle of the aperitivi hour, which is an Italian habit I could very happily see grow into a cliche in this country.

None of our little snackettis are all that brilliant but they're nice enough to have to immediately call for a Campari and soda (swift nods of approval from Stefano Mascarello, the enthusiastic barman/waiter) and a golden, big-bodied lager called 'na Biretta, from an artisanal brewery in Fiumicino, near Rome Airport.

The menu reflects Alacqua's Sicilian roots, including eggplant involtini, ''crispy calamari zucchini'', and - another nice idea - a mix of three arancini rice balls with different fillings.

There's enough incentive to keep the aperitivi hour alive by ordering a few starters to share. The first is an odd line-up of sliced tuna ($16), lightly seared and coated in mushy pistachio crumbs; not altogether successful. Clams and mussels al cartoccio ($17) come in their steaming foil pouch on a puddle of good, fragrant juices, with slabs of grilled bread tucked inside. It's always a thrill to eat freshly steamed molluscs but these bear the marks of over-cooking, and there are but four tiny clams.

Main courses on the blackboard read more like primi than secondi, with three of the four involving pasta; the fourth being veal braciola. So, pasta it is. But the spaghetti with sausage meatballs and pecorino ($22) is a long way from being desirable. The spaghetti is soft and steamy, the tomato sauce is acidic and the polpettine quite crusty and dry, with a touch of gristle inside. I'm sorry, but if even good old cheap-and-cheerful Bar Reggio in Darlinghurst can send out spaghetti with sausages that's al dente and sweet tasting, how hard can it be?

Over-cooking seems to be a feature here, although that's not always a crime. Some dishes rely on long cooking to develop flavours, such as a likeable stew of calamari in umido ($14); the sauce sweet with squid, the acid cooked out.

The wine list is genuinely interesting, with uncliched choices such as an unoaked kerner (a cross between riesling and trollinger or schiava grossa) from Abbazia di Novacella in the Alto Adige ($15 glass) that's just plain adorable, and a quite beguilingly ripe, red 2010 Cantina Gallura Cannonau (grenache) from Sardinia ($55).

Almond semifreddo ($8) is cutesied up in a small mould, rather than the traditional slab; the marzipan-like semi-frozen cream almost but not quite lost under a rich chocolate sauce and candied almonds, making it taste like a slightly icy cassata siciliana.

La Vucciria has a good oomph to it, with waves of kinetic energy flooding the room from the traffic on Flinders Street. The food comes out of the kitchen thick and fast, and there is the generosity of aperitivi and family-made biscotti. Bottom line? Close, but no cigar.

tdurack@smh.com.au

La Vucciria

Address 160 Flinders Street, Paddington

Phone 8068 5598 lavucciria.com.au

Open Dinner Tues-Sun

Licensed Yes

Cost About $85 for two, plus wine