“CIAO, BELLO!” Orazio D’Elia calls through the open louvred windows to a passer-by, who pauses for a quick chat. A few moments before, a couple had peered through at the Italian apple pie laid out on a table for our shoot, asking questions and (probably) menu planning. D’Elia turns back to me, smiling. “Everyone likes to say hi here.”
It’s the early afternoon, and sunlight beams into Da Orazio, D’Elia’s restaurant off the busy Hall Street hub of Bondi. Locals will know that this isn’t a debut, but more a homecoming for the popular Italian spot, where D’Elia was previously head chef until 2018. The restaurant – D’Elia’s first love, as he calls it – is back for a second run, and diners can expect more of what made it so popular the first time around. “When people ask me, ‘So what’s going to be on the menu?’ I say, probably 30 percent of the old stuff. But I think it will probably be 50 percent. There’s nothing wrong with bringing back a dish,” D’Elia says. “It’s like if you have a book, and instead of going to the next page, you flip to the page before to read the chapter again. You know,
