Maretti Caffe Cuccina Mosman Park
If a restaurant that makes absolutely everything on its menu from scratch is your idea of personal bliss, then Maretti could well be your new favourite rendezvous. Born in the region of Emilia Romagna in Italy's north and having started cooking when he was 13, chef and owner Matteo Maretti produces everything on his menu in-house. There are seven different types of pasta that he makes daily; 11 varieties of traditional pizza, baked to crunchy perfection in the restaurant's pizza oven; half a dozen sauces to go with the pasta; all of the cafe's bread; and two hours of painstaking dessert-making every morning, culminating in a display case bursting with such sweet treats as pannacotta, chocolate mousse and amaretto biscuits.
The French-Italian version of Maretti's creme brulee is a stand-out, baked in an enormous oval ramekin that is filled to the brim with rich, creamy custard, topped with a burnt sugar crust and decorated with long strands of spun sugar. All this attention to home-cooked goodness has paid off: the restaurant was recently awarded the Gold Plate Award in no less than three categories. The crowd is two-pronged: early birds are families who can have their fill of pizza and pasta before the kids hit the hay. while late-starters are the genteel professionals who reside in the leafy streets surrounding the suburban eatery.
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