Bondi-Manly battle over angel-hair pasta joke now

The battle of the angel-hair pasta dish already stretches from Bondi to Manly, and last week it exploded in cyberspace.

The dish in question is tuna and angel-hair pasta, created in 1994 by chef Andy Davies at the Sports Bar in Bondi. Chef Massimo Mele worked briefly with him at Davies' present restaurant, the Bondi Trattoria, six years ago then later put the dish on the menu at Hugos Manly.

Fans and colleagues of Davies have become increasingly frustrated by references on TV and in print to it being Mele's dish. They launched an online campaign when Mele's recipe for the dish ran in another newspaper.

''The dish was inspired in Bondi and perfected in Manly, I use a different cut of tuna and a different pasta, tagliolini. I just can't sell it as tagliolini because people over here don't know what it is,'' Mele tells Short Black.

Mele also returns fire, saying the Bondi Tratt kept a couple of his dishes on its menu after he'd left.

''I'm happy to acknowledge Andy, but I'm not going to pull it off the menu,'' he says.