Wilmer

Good morning, class of 2017. Raise your hand if you remember the Eat In - Chippendale's first fully functional, slightly illegal, sort of Italian warehouse pop up from a bunch of ex-Vini staffers going by the name Full Circle. Top marks if you made it there. For everyone else, the take-home message is that it came, it went, and then we cried.

Unbroken, the 'Circle went on to open Alfio's in a broken down old Leichhardt red sauce joint and we cheered. And then it closed and the cycle continued.

Happily enough, we're on a high with their latest incarnation, Wilmer, which you'll find on the old Wilbur's Place site, in Potts Point. In true 'here for a good time, not a long time' style, the restaurant's sign is little more than a bit of cardboard gaffer taped to the wall marked in Sharpie.

Inside, decoration strays as far as a few posies and a  felt pinboard advertising a clutch of wines (the furthest reaching being the Adelaide Hills and the closest, someone's backyard in Marrickville) and, I'm pleased to note, 'half negronis'. Which is exactly the right amount of Negroni pre-dinner, if you order two.

Speaking of things being better in twos, consider this. Wilmer is not huge. On a temperate evening, there are larger tables outside but these go quickly. Inside, it's bar seating lining the shoebox sized dining room and barely an inch to move and breathe. Take a close pal, don't low-talk and you'll be fine - especially if you order the broccoli florets, deep-fried and served with a dish of anchovy spiked mayonnaise. The day I first discovered anchovies and broccoli made such delicious friends was a very nice day indeed.

Now, the menu here is made to share, and if you're here as a couple, this is where things get a little tricky.

But whatever you do don't miss the pasta. This visit it's fusilli, the corkscrew pasta soaked in spicy tomato, sweetened and enriched with broken pieces of fried pork sausage and peas. There's a tricky little number, too, where pasta shells are interspersed with tender chickpeas and shell-shaped chickpea crisps. It's a very cool sleight-of-pea, and one that probably won't feature when you visit.

A pork cutlet, cooked on the bone, served in tender slices doused in brown butter probably won't be either. That's how often the menu changes.

I'd like to promise a perfect poached peach resting in a puddle of zabaglione cream - all the flavours of the whipped Italian dessert, only runny - but I can't do that either. What I can offer is this: Wilmer's a brilliant neighbourhood restaurant here for one short season.  Don't view the ever-changing menu as a problem, but rather than opportunity to visit again and again.