Jamie’s Italian, Wynyard

The secret to beating the constant queues at Jamie’s Italian is to book a table for at least 6 people – bookings for any less than that are not accepted. This high profile two storey restaurant is bigger than it appears from the street but still feels cozy somehow. There are some nice touches in the restaurant, such as the fancy chandelier at the entrance and the complimentary assorted bread basket served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Jamie Oliver has even had his name emblazoned onto the cloth napkins, just in case you forgot where you were dining tonight.

Complimentary bread basket

The menu is quite extensive and I like how you can choose to order appetiser sizes of the pastas and risottos, which was perfect for us since we wanted to try a variety of their dishes. We start off with an entree of crispy squid to share and the squid is lightly battered and tasted glorious with the (really) garlicky mayo. We end up dipping our bread into the remaining garlic mayo because it is so addictive.

Crispy squid with garlicky mayo $12

The waitress then comes out with our 3 appetiser sized plates and we look a bit like pigs sharing them between just the 2 of us. But in our defence, each of the pastas and risottos we ordered were strongly flavoured and very different in taste, so it gave our tastebuds a good workout and helped us avoid the problem of becoming sick of the dish before we finish it.

Crab and squid ink risotto $15.50

The most intriguing looking plate was the crab and squid ink risotto. The black squid ink may be a bit offputting for some people but it tastes nicely savoury, especially with the soft spanner crab meat mixed in and the contrasting crunchy herby breadcrumbs for extra texture. You do end up with black stained teeth afterwards, but that’s easily fixed by washing out your mouth with water afterwards.

Mussel Linguine, $13.50

There’s not a lot of pasta in this dish but there’s a decent serving of scappato (runaway) mussels tossed through the pasta with garlic, chilli and parsley with butter and lemon. The pasta was a bit harder than usual, it didn’t taste completely cooked but the juicy mussels and delicious sauce made up for it.

Truffle Risotto, $17

There are 2 finely shaven pieces of black truffle adorning this dish and the truffle oil infused in the creamy rice is quite overwhelming with each bite taken. There’s not much else in the dish except butter and parmesan, so I got bored of the taste rather quickly and needed to have some of the other 2 dishes to make things a bit more exciting. There’s not much point ordering this unless you appreciate the unique flavour of truffles.

I would say that Jamie’s Italian is a decent mid-priced restaurant which doesn’t quite live up to all the hype that has surrounded its opening, but it’s a conveniently located eatery which serves up dishes with interesting ingredients without asking its customers to break the bank.

Jamie’s Italian
107 Pitt Street 
Sydney NSW 2000
Phone:  (02) 8240 9000

Jamie's Italian on Urbanspoon

11 Comments

  • I found that when I had the linguine also that the pasta was a little harder than I was used to. Not sure if this was their al dente? But it did feel like I was eating uncooked pasta…..

  • Miss Piggy says:

    I really enjoyed my dinner at Jamie’s Italian – and I had high expectations so I was expecting to be let done. I think it helped that we didn’t have to wait and that it was a really buzzy vibe too. I enjoyed the food – loved the polenta chips…OMG!

  • Thanh says:

    My dining experience at Jamie Olivers was very similar to yours, I think you have to try things other then the pasta’s as what I have been told. So I might have to try it again to get a better insight. I did find the pasta hard though..

  • JasmyneTea says:

    The squid ink risotto looks pretty great, but you’re right, seems a bit average considering the hype.

  • VP says:

    Went last night with 3 other girls.
    would NOT go there ever again.
    and would tell everyone NOT to go :/
    We got dirty/greasy plates and cutlery (there was even food residue left on the fork and plates). DISGUSTING.
    Food was not memorable at all, it seemed like they didn’t know how to season the polenta chips (supposedly “famous”) and Italian Nachos properly, some bits were SO over-salted it made the corners of my mouth sting.
    Service was crap, I couldn’t tell if our waitress was plain rude or just dumb.

    overall a pretty appalling experience :S

  • Lexie says:

    We went there several times, but won’t return. The ricotta in the ravioli had split and after mentioning this to the waitress, the chef insisted it was fine. A shame, since some of the dishes were nice. But yes, very overhyped.

Leave a Reply to VPCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.