Bryce Gleeson and Danielle Mills are responsible for this excellent pasta-focused restaurant on Woy Woy’s main drag. The partners in life (and dough) met at Belles at Killcare before moving to Sydney where they both worked at the Boathouse on Blackwattle Bay. Gleeson – who’s also a musician – focuses on front of house and curating the wine list to include a mix of drops that sits well with the excellent housemade pasta menu devised by Mills. Before you dive head first into the carb fest, have a serve of soft burrata. The thin mozzarella orb encases creamy stracciatella, which when sliced melts into slices of golden and dark purple beetroot that sit underneath. Or go the ham hock and potato croquettes, which takes a home-style brunch-flavoured bite to the next level with a house whipped mayo and a perfectly crisp exterior.
The main event here is the pasta, which plays with tried-and-true Italian recipes to showcases beautifully made fresh egg pasta. This is the sort of pasta that provokes excitement when it lands at your table, and the enthusiasm only grows with each delicious, savory, soft and salty bite.
We had to ask just how they get their gnocchi so pillowy soft. It’s the result of using creamy Charlotte potatoes, and they opt for older ones so that the moisture content is lower, meaning only a small amount of flour is needed to bind the mixture, keeping each gnocchi nice and light. The sauce – capers, olives, basil and tomato sugo – speaks to the ability of Italian food to be simple but still special. Same goes for the rigatoni (served al dente, giving the pasta a great bite and texture) with tomato, a just-sweet fennel-imbued sausage and sautéed brassica greens.
If you were to think it’s odd to only have pasta as mains (there’s just one other rotating option) – this isn’t the place to think that. Each dish exemplifies Mills’ pasta-master status, making it abundantly clear why Young Barons has much of the Central Coast travelling to twirl the fork and get in on the action.