Pasta that delivers a new artform at Giuls

Giulia Treuner, owner of Giuls restaurant, loves pasta to the point her husband cannot eat any more of it. "But, if you came to my house, I would immediately cook you pasta," she says. "I cannot stop loving it."

Giuls, a Tuscan-inspired restaurant named after the nickname Treuner's grandfather gave her, is set in a high-ceilinged former art gallery on a buzzy stretch of Crown Street. 

Its decor, entirely reworked by Treuner, formerly group area manager at Rockpool Dining Group, and head chef Esmerelda Perez, ex-head chef at Carbon, is airy, full of light and marked by red and white striped umbrellas at the front.

Inside, suspended black shelves lined with tinned tomatoes and wine bottles hang above a tall dappled pink-tiled counter bar and a turquoise-tiled open kitchen. Such is the kitchen's narrow width, well-practiced staff look like aproned dancers fox-trotting with hot pans and pasta tongs.

We sit on banquette seating backed with striped red and orange cushions with tables inside and out filled with people rediscovering summer eating like days of yore. 

Al fresco seating stretches across next-door's courtyard and out onto the bitumen of Crown Street. Here, ringed by protective concrete bollards, proof of Sydney's post-pandemic dining resurgence is most evident. Diners eat stuffed zucchini flowers with goat curd, ricotta and truffle honey, or grilled Tasmanian octopus, with nduja dressing and chilli oil, their breeze-lifted hair a whisker away from passing cars.

You could sip a passionfruit sour and munch house-marinated olives and safely high-five motorists idling at the traffic lights.

The Saturday menu we are offered includes a weekend-only bottomless brunch option offering 90 minutes of boundless Aperol Spritz, espresso martini, house wines or house beers with olives, antipasto, focaccia and a pasta dish, all for $79.

It also features six starters, ranging from oysters to focaccia, arancini, mortadella and prosciutto, five antipasti and nine pasta and primi dishes. A vast one-kilogram tomahawk steak, flashed with fire and sprinkled with rosemary, is also available.

We choose marinated oysters served with a strawberry vinegar and thyme dressing, along with house-made focaccia flecked with smoked thyme and black salt, and three pastas. 

The latter is the heart of Giuls. Treuner, who is German but developed a love of Italian food from an early age, says between 65 to 85 kilograms of pasta is made in-house every week using an Italian La Monferrina pasta machine.

Today, these include conchiglie, orecchiette, ravioli, spaghetti, spirali, rigatoni and squid ink fettuccine. 

After ordering the last three, we dip hearty, herby, gently browned focaccia hunks into silky olive oil before lashing the oysters with sweet fruity fermented vinegar.

The fettuccine, jet black and served with crab, cherry tomatoes and chilli arrives, and is a luscious jumble of semolina ribbons, soft meat and kicky red sauce. Equally excellent is the spirali, its fat pasta curls holding a Stonehenge of upright mussel shells and fish pieces in fresh tomato sugo.

The star is the rigatoni. Here is a hearty meadow of ribbed pasta tubes, layered grass-fed lamb ragu and a blanket of wafer-thin parmesan curls that everyone wants, prompting an unseemly clash of utensils.

Desserts, which include a creme caramel budino with whipped cream and creamy fudge, feature a panna cotta with rhubarb coulis and fresh strawberries that jiggles with such indecency our sparring spoons feel rude.

Giuls's menu, devised by Perez with Florence-born chef Alessio Rago, is inspired by Treuner's years of travel to Italy. "I fell in love with Italy when I was young," she says. "I went this year and Esmerelda and I are already booked for next year."

Last month, the pair launched another restaurant with Italian roots, this time called Harry's. Named after Treuner's grandfather, it is a pasta and pizza spot down the road in Stanley Street. 

The women-led credentials of both restaurants are worn with pride. "A female head chef and female owner of a restaurant is not that common," Treuner says. "People even say to us that's one reason they come here to eat. I am very proud of that."

The low-down

Vibe Modern Italian with handmade pasta, chic cocktails and smart decor 

Go-to dish Squid ink fettuccine with crab, cherry tomatoes and chilli