It's focaccia, but not as we know it

The northern Italian coastal region of Liguria produces a lot of famous dishes you have never heard of, unless you're a geeky food nerd.

Vast shallow trays of farinata – a baked chickpea batter similar to Nice's socca. Corzetti, a beautiful stamped pasta particular to the region. Capon magro, an ornately layered vegetable and seafood salad. I thought I knew them all, but no, I missed the best.

It's called focaccia col formaggio di Recco, a specialty of the seaside town of Recco (population about 10,000), and it has the power to make life irrevocably more beautiful.

It's not, however, focaccia as we know it. Instead, two elastic, paper-thin veils of dough encase a squish of soft, creamy, lactic stracchino and are baked at extremely high temperature for five to six minutes.

What emerges is a disc of blistery crispness that is at once sharp-edged and soft-bottomed, held together by cheese transformed into some sort of magical sweet and savoury cream. It's impossible to take your first bite and not suddenly feel the world has stopped spinning on its axis while your brain tries to process the extent of the deliciousness.

Focaccia di Recco is why you have to go to ReccoLab, the Ligurian-inspired fusion of aperitivo bar, cafe, pizzeria, bakery and ristorante that opened in lower Rozelle late last year. By far the most space here is given over to the glassed-in panificio, or bakery, where a multidecked Polin oven bakes breads and tortas for the cafe and, at night, focaccia for the restaurant.

In order to open ReccoLab, Sydney DJ Antonio Zambarelli studied pizza with artisanal oven manufacturer Acunto in Naples, and gelato at the Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna.

Born in Recco, Zambarelli has enormous pride and respect for his culinary heritage, flying in fresh shipments of Carioni stracchino from Italy, and obsessively creating seven versions of the focaccia. The molto buona, topped with San Daniele prosciutto and truffle salsa ($29), is magnificently over-the-top, but it's the simplicity and integrity of the unadorned Classica ($25) that is the life-changer.

Chief pizzaiolo Erik Lussu sends out 20 different wood-fired pizzas including a scorchy, crusty capricciosa that carries tomato, fior di latte, mushrooms, ham, olives and artichokes ($25). Tuesday night is Giro pizza, an all-you-can-eat format for $20 an adult and $10 a child.

On other nights, the full menu is in force via hard-working young head chef Lorenzo De Petris, from his casalinga version of octopus with potatoes ($20) to a frittura of deep-fried seafood ($21) that is a lovely, tangled mess of baby squid and large prawns laced with strips of fried zucchini on brown paper, with fresh lemon and aioli.

The menu includes a pleasant enough spaghettone verace done with baby pipis ($28), crumbed pork cutlet, and desserts of panna cotta and tiramisu – but will they make your life irrevocably more beautiful? No. So why would you take up room that could otherwise be filled with focaccia di Recco?

You will also be needing a drink, in self defence. Aperol spritzes are the big order, closely followed by decent negronis. A fresh, intense 2014 Giorgio Meletti Cavallaro Bolgheri Bianco vermentino-viognier blend ($12/$57) does well against the seafood.

Just remember, you're there for the focaccia di Recco: the best thing to come from Liguria that you've never heard of.

The lowdown

Best bit: Focaccia col formaggio di Recco, what else?

Worst bit: It's probably really, really fattening.

Go to dish: Focaccia col formaggio molto buona, with ham and truffle ($29).

Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for the Good Food Guide. This rating is based on the Good Food Guide scoring system.