Pilu at Freshwater

Pilu at Freshwater is Sardinia on the sand

Pilu at Freshwater is Giovanni Pilu’s Sardinian restaurant, set in a heritage-listed beach house on the sand at Freshwater, and the Northern Beaches’ go-to for long lunches, milestone birthdays and weddings. Two decades in, it still runs on the Sardinian idea that feeding people well is the whole point. Book a window table and let lunch drift into the afternoon.

Few Sydney restaurants have a setting like this, and fewer have held their standard for so long. Giovanni Pilu cooks the food of his home island with modern technique but never loses the regional roots: handmade pastas, Australian seafood finished with house-cured bottarga, and the famous suckling pig carved as the centrepiece. Front of house, his wife Marilyn and a long-serving team of sommeliers and floor staff make every guest feel like a regular.