The menu is long with decades-old recipes at Don Beppino’s, aka The House of Lasagna. Add this much-loved Italian icon (with free BYO) to your next holiday itinerary.
Italian$
A few years ago, vodka pasta started appearing on menus at a rate that hadn’t been seen since the great wagyu slider invasion of 2010. The dish – penne, usually, with a glossy tomato sauce enhanced and emulsified by hard liquor – featured on several end-of-year food trends lists, which surely raised the eyebrows of any longtime Don Beppino’s regulars who happened to be reading. The Newcastle trattoria has served vodka sauce for longer than the concept of a food trend has existed.
To many Novocastrians, Don Beppino’s is better known as the “The House of Lasagna”, which is emblazoned in white letters across the brown tiles of its awning. The building looks like a Lego brick painted red, white and green and is as iconic to Newcastle as Christ Church Cathedral and Joey Johns skating down King Street. The tiny dining room is a time-jump of white plaster walls, Cinzano logos and a striking Roman statue. I will try to visit anytime I’m in town.
Don Beppino’s has been in the business of pizza and pasta since 1973, making it one of the oldest Italian restaurants still going strong in NSW. Originally, it was also in the business of laundering (clothes, not cash) as a one-stop shop for anyone prone to getting red sauce on their Trent Nathan tops. There were burgers, chips and Chiko Rolls in the early days, too, but Sicilian-born owner Guiessepe Riscato eventually went all in on Italian and employed a team of experts.
(There’s a feature story for someone to someday write about Riscato, who – according to my Newcastle Herald archive research – came from a family of shoemakers, tailors and barbers. He won a major prize in a Sicilian art competition at age 15 and left war-torn Europe for Australia in 1948 on the strength of a contract as a restorer of religious art. He was also the official photographer for Miss Australia and painted a portrait of Pope Paul VI on his visit in 1970.)
Riscato sold the business to trusted employee Jacqueline Masia in 1993, but a handwritten sign from the bloke still hangs next to the back-lit takeaway menu: “Don Beppino’s does not have a chef in the kitchen, only Italian ladies who do the cooking as it was taught to them by their mothers and grandmothers. I feel obliged to tell you the names of these beautiful ladies: Angela, Rosa, Filomena and Anna.”
And I feel obliged to tell you that the lasagne is a banger. Five bechamel-free layers of pasta, mozzarella, parmesan and rich, meaty bolognese. Dine in (and take advantage of free BYO) and the huge serve comes with crunchy garlic potatoes and a submissive mix of roasted zucchini, capsicum and eggplant. The same sides are teamed with a saltimbocca which may not feature the most tender veal you’ve ever encountered, but its sauce nails the holy trifecta of white wine, butter and cream.
Today, Don’s is largely run by Masia’s son, Carlo, and his wife, Vicki, although Jackie still helps make sauces and occasionally works front-of-house. (The four Italian ladies have aged out of the kitchen, but Rosa lives nearby and often pops in with homemade sweets.) The menu is long with decades-old recipes, including the butter-forward chilli vodka number with gomitti (a close cousin of macaroni); a luscious, blitzed pumpkin sauce (it also clings to elbows of gomitti); hunky pork and veal cannelloni; and bow-tie pasta with a creamy bacon and mushroom carbonara that would never pass muster in Lazio, but is perfect with the kind of chardonnay you don’t have to think about on a Saturday afternoon.
The bulk of Don’s trade comes from takeaway sales (this is an Uber Eats-free zone); the pizzas run true to form to most red-and-white-chequered joints along Norton Street in Leichhardt. I’ve long gravitated to the Sardinia special, which is heavy with pepperoni, olives, basil, garlic and fried onion, its leftover slices doubling as a first-rate breakfast.
Beppi’s in Darlinghurst excluded, most Italian restaurants in Sydney of a similar age have changed menus and hands myriad times. It’s rare to have such consistent ownership as this House of Lasagna, not to mention its unwavering recipes. This is food for “picnics, days at the beach and all family occasions”, claims a framed print-ad from the 1970s next to the door, also noting that “our pizza can be eaten hot, cold or even reheated”. I couldn’t agree more.
The low-down
Atmosphere: Tiny, family-friendly trattoria
Go-to dishes: Lasagne bolognese ($18/$23); gomitti zucca ($18/$23); cannelloni ($19/$25); Sardinia pizza ($18/$22)
Drinks: Soft drinks and free BYO. The closest bottle shop is The Prince of Merewether; the best bottle shop in Newcastle in Vera Wine
Cost: About $50 for two, excluding drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine
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