Silvia Colloca's Italian Sydney: An insider's itinerary to the best places to eat and drink

• Four egg-cellent recipes from Silvia Colloca's new cookbook Italian Home Cook

"They're just really soft. They're magical."

Silvia Colloca, Milanese-born actor, singer, TV presenter, cookbook author goes to a paradisiacal place when she's describing her mother's meatballs.

"She does this trick where she soaks crustless bread in milk long enough for the milk to be absorbed, then she squishes it up, drains out a bit of the milk, then she adds this wet pulp into the meatball mixture, which also has parmesan cheese and parsley and all of the things."

Colloca recalls a "sad and depressing" winter's afternoon during the first lockdown when she discovered, in the depths of her freezer, the last of her mum's prized veal and pork meatballs, made during her last visit to Australia, pre-pandemic.

"I was cooking them and, you know – three kids – I got distracted and burnt them. I was honestly crying meatball-sized tears. I managed to scrape the bits that had caught and salvage them."

When things are redone in fancy new ways and there's a vegan carbonara on someone's menu – I just feel like saying, 'Yes, do that, but don't call it carbonara. You just don't understand – you're hurting us!'

We're sipping a rounded and robust coffee surrounded by shelves of pasta and Italian tinned tomatoes at Quattro Stagioni Deli Cafe in Mona Vale on Sydney's Northern Beaches, not far from where Colloca lives with her husband, actor Richard Roxburgh, and three children.

"I found this place when I needed experts who knew how to slice prosciutto and mortadella the Italian way – you know – really thin," Colloca says. "It's a simple thing, but it really helps me feel connected to my culture."

The importance of slicing deli meats "the Italian way" perfectly summarises the cuisine's reverence for superior ingredients, brought to life with a deft combination of tradition, restraint and creativity.

Colloca has long been a champion of this food ethos and of transforming humble ingredients into colourful, flavour-forward dishes that are steeped in history, as is the subject of her four television series' and sixth cookbook, The Italian Home Cook, out this month via Plum Books.

The effortlessly put-together Colloca, who exudes Milanese style – with Disney Princess brown locks and skin that could only be the product of bathing in a tub of cold-pressed olive oil each night – is lightning-fast to quash any ideas of being a poster girl for Italian cooking.

"I liked cooking, like everyone does in Italy, you know what I mean?" she laughs. "And so that's what I did."

The always-humble Colloca attributes the success of her earlier recipes, which were launched on a blog that would soon catch the discerning eye of major book publishers and then TV networks, to writing as an immigrant rather than a chef.

"I was writing about the disconnection [I felt] with my own culture and how to reconnect with it, and that's how I found my voice. Those experiences I was sharing resonated with people – not just [people] necessarily from an Italian background."

She describes Italian food culture as an "endless pot of gold" made up of multiple sub-cuisines.

"For a country that's so tiny, the subdivision between regions and the fierce regional pride that drives them means that each and every one of them have their own culinary identity."

For many Italians like Colloca, food, culture and identity are entangled like a bowl of spaghetti. Cooking played a significant role in her earlier life (she's inherited her nonno's love of the smooth-shelled penne lisce, for instance, and her mum taught her early on about the transformational powers of a stock cube), but it wasn't until moving to Sydney in 2009 that she followed her mum's advice and began to lean on food as a way to remain connected with her culture.

"I think what happens in Italian food culture is that it's so important to us for our cultural identity, so when things are redone in fancy new ways and there's a vegan carbonara on someone's menu – I just feel like saying, 'Yes, do that, but don't call it carbonara. You just don't understand – you're hurting us!'"

Colloca is shaking off the last dregs of jet lag after returning from her first trip to Italy in three years, a wait she calls "heartbreaking" and one that produced many a meatball-sized tear.

"Moving here was hard in that way, to be far away, but I always thought that if anything happens and I have to go back, I can go. Then when that was not a possibility, it really broke my heart."

She split her time there between Milan and her mother's village in the mountains of Abruzzo, a rugged, underdeveloped region famous for its rustic cucina povera, which has long inspired her cooking.

"I really felt my heart melding back together after only being back there a couple of weeks – that sort of anxiety or background noise that I had was gone."

The first few years of forging a new life, new friends and a career in Australia with a toddler in tow were understandably challenging ones for Colloca, but it drove her to start cooking, documenting recipes, and to seek out local cultural touchpoints.

"See, that's the thing, it doesn't matter where you come from – you just have to find your immigrants."

Silvia Colloca's Italian hit list

For sourcing lesser-known cheeses like an intensely flavoured ricotta salata, which she likes to shave over her pasta norma (pasta with eggplant), Colloca visits Quattro Formaggi Deli in Brookvale.

"They've got a sensational variety of cheeses, cold cuts and all the dry goods."

When it comes to buying fresh produce, Italian oils, unusual pasta shapes like the tubular paccheri or aforementioned penne lisce, and 1kg drums of pre-grated parmesan or grana cheese, she heads to the supermarket-sized Forestway Fresh in Terrey Hills.

"Whenever we're running low on parmesan, either Richard or I will go and pick up a few tins. It's nice to know that we're never going to run out!"

Colloca recommends heading there on Thursdays when they also make a batch of fresh gnocchi, an Italian ritual that's a hangover from a time when fasting was observed on Fridays in some parts of the country, preceded by carb-loading the day prior.

"It's proper Italian gnocchi – light, fluffy, nice and chunky – not dainty, but proper rustic, beautiful food." The gnocchi takes her right back to one of her favourite restaurants in Milan, La Posteria, where she and Roxburgh recently dined.

"The special on [the menu] that day was gnocchi with saffron and seafood. It was stupid good. We were tearing up, we couldn't even talk."

For Italian produce south of the Spit Bridge, Colloca finds her happy place at Raineri's Continental Delicatessen in Five Dock.

"I remember the first time I was in Sydney in 2005 or 2006 – back then, you couldn't find things like burrata easily. The second I walked into Raineri's, I only heard Italian spoken. Even the smell – I could have been anywhere in Italy. And the owners, Pete and Serena – if I could take them home with me, I would."

She buys sliced prosciutto and asiago cheese here and says if you're lucky Pete will even throw together a sandwich for you while you wait for your order to be packed.

"They're so generous – they do it with love, and so they've got this village of customers from all generations who keep returning."

Over in Sydney's west, a local mum friend put her onto Bossley Park General Store and Deli for their range of homemade Italian biscuits (her favourite tea-dunkers are the amaretti) and soft Italian flours, used to make myriad breads, biscuits and cakes such as her famous fruit-studded ciambella (Italy's answer to bundt cake).

"The owner, Enzo, might take you around the back for a little espresso shot and if Franca is there, she'll give you a shot of grappa."

When her eldest son can help with babysitting, Colloca and her husband head to Bert's Bar and Brasserie in Newport to catch up over a plate of market-fresh crudo or pizza fritte – the salty, fried dough arriving straddled by oily anchovies. "It's decadent, and we're both big lovers of anchovies."

If the whole family is in tow, they make for Marta Osteria in Rushcutters Bay for their Italian fix. "Their pastas are incredible. They do the traditional carbonara, and the real cacio e pepe. They make really good flatbreads, focaccia and their sfogliatelle [flaky shell-shaped pastry] is like you would have in Naples."

For special occasions, Colloca loves Paddington's Cipri Italian, where "tables of families dress in their Sunday best for each other", while casual pizza nights at La Disfida in Haberfield fills their old-school Italian cup.

"I go to these places for the whole experience. I need that sometimes – I need my Italians."

The black book

Quattro Stagioni Deli Cafe

Shop 1, 1767 Pittwater Road, Mona Vale

Quattro Formaggi Deli

Shop X6-X8, Warringah Mall, Cross Street, Brookvale

Forestway Fresh

2 Myoora Road, Terrey Hills

Raineri's Continental Delicatessen

97 Great North Road, Five Dock

Bossley Park General Store and Deli

Shop 1, 57-59 Mimosa Road, Bossley Park

Bert's Bar and Brasserie

2 Kalinya Street, Newport

Marta Osteria

30 McLachlan Avenue, Rushcutters Bay

Cipri Italian

10 Elizabeth Street, Paddington

La Disfida

109 Ramsay Street, Haberfield

Taste of Italy

Two other prominent Italians about town share their local loves.

CHEF FEDERICO ZANELLATO, LUMI BAR & DINING

For Italian dining

• Totti's, Bondi
• Ragazzi Wine & Pasta, Sydney
• Busta, Manly
• Pino's Vino e Cucina, Alexandria

"I love what the guys at Totti's are doing – it's very simple and very delicious. I love all their entrees, wood-fired bread and pasta. Ragazzi also does a very good job with their pasta and classic Italian entrees. I usually order them all and ask for whatever pasta is on special. Busta in Manly is also great, and I love Pino's Vino e Cucina in Alexandria. I usually get the crudo and any filled pasta on the menu."

For pizza

• Pizza Madre, Marrickville
• Bella Brutta, Newtown

"I have a pizza oven at home that I love to use but when I go out, I like Pizza Madre and Bella Brutta from the LP's Meats guys."

For fresh Italian cheeses

• Formaggi Ocello, Surry Hills

"Ocello – always Ocello. It's the best. All the cheeses are kept at the right temperature, and [owner] Carmello matures all the stuff there. He probably has the best selection of Italian cheeses in Sydney."

For meat

• Emilio's Butcher, Rozelle
• CopperTree Farms

"Emilio's is run by two of my good friends who used to work for Feather and Bone. I also love a lot of the stuff from CopperTree Farms – they do a lot of classic Italian cuts, and I love their parmesan butter, which I always get for cooking and using on bread."

For Italian wine

• The Standard Wine, Waterloo
• Websites: Bibendum Wine Co., Giorgio de Maria and Godot Wines

"Godot Wines only specialises in small producers from all around Italy. They're usually low-intervention, biodynamic, oxidised – all those trendy wines."

CHEF ORAZIO D'ELIA, DA ORAZIO

For dining out

• Pilu, Freshwater
• Fratelli Paradiso, Potts Point

"I love Pilu – I'm a big fan of Sardinian cuisine, and the dining room by the water is beautiful. I also love the boys at Icebergs, and I love Fratelli Paradiso. I always try to have a meal at a restaurant that is not Italian, too – to try new things. That's my thing."

For pizza

• Lucio Pizzeria, Darlinghurst and Zetland

"Lucio and I grew up together in Napoli – we went to the same school. I could see his house from my house. He is one of the most respected pizzaioli in Sydney."

For gelato

• Mapo Gelato

"I really love the guys from Mapo Gelato. They've got a couple of shops – one in Bondi, one in Newtown. They do a pretty good artisanal Italian gelato."

For Italian wine

• Amato's Liquor Mart, Leichhardt

"I love my wine – especially robust reds from Puglia. I love a Primitivo di Manduria. There's a good Italian bottle shop in Leichhardt called Amato that focuses on very good Italian wines."