If you've been to A Tavola in either Darlinghurst or Bondi or Besser in Surry Hills, you'll know what to expect at Flour Eggs Water. As the name suggests, the main focus of the Tramsheds hang-out is quality handmade pasta made from the namesake ingredients. With an epic pasta-making setup on display, guests can sit down for a bowl of the good stuff and watch their pasta made right in front of their eyes, or take it away to cook at home. Renowned chef-owner Eugenio Maiale deliberately deviated from the traditional restaurant formula to create something special.
"A Tavola is more of a restaurant, while Flour Eggs Water is more of a pasta bar," says Maiale. "It's a place to come for fresh, handcrafted, hand-filled and extruded pastas using the best possible ingredients."
A pasta bar sounds like something from our dreams, as do most of the dishes on Maiale's morish menu. The crowd-pleasing pappardelle with beef, tomato, red wine and parmesan ($33) is full of warmth and flavour while the cauliflower and mint orecchiette ($29) is deceptively simple and extremely delicious. With the basics covered — perfectly cooked al dente pasta — there's room to focus on the bucketloads of fresh seasonal produce.
The venue boasts a comprehensive, cleverly curated wine list which showcases a throng of family-run wine producers that are dedicated to crafting the very best natural wines. It also has plonk from small Italian and local wineries on tap — yep, just when we thought we couldn't love this place anymore.