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Just Open: DiWine, Darlinghurst

Scott Bolles
Scott Bolles

Shutting up shop: Jazz City Milkbar.
Shutting up shop: Jazz City Milkbar.Marco del Grande

Jazz City Milkbar's recent exit from Republic 2 doesn't bode well for fans of American-style pie, milkshakes and watermelon-flavoured fairy floss, but chalk one up for another comeback kid: old-school Italian.

Vittorio Esposito, one of the original chefs at Il Baretto in Surry Hills, has spent the past eight years working in Milan, London and Prague.

But he's always wanted to return to Sydney to open his own place. DiWine, which slides into the old milkbar site, is where he is headed.

There are touches of his Il Baretto days, the chef making all the pasta in-house, including a strozzapreti he serves with swordfish and fennel, and a pappardelle with beef cheeks.

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"I trained under old-school chefs so I wasn't out there looking for the next thing. I just wanted to do something nice and simple," he says.

Adding to DiWine's Italian theme, front of house has an Italian flavour with Sicilian co-owner Marco Musumeci patrolling the floor.

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Scott BollesScott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.

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