Little Black Pig & Sons

Little Black Pig & Sons isn’t your average dinner and a show. Co-owner and chef David Lakhi splits his time between the kitchen and the front of house, dishing out equal amounts of theatre across the two. You’ll often find him explaining each dish to customers, whether it’s the origins of different ingredients or how you might recreate it at home.

Lakhi and co-chef Samuel Choi change the a la carte and set menus fortnightly, depending on what’s in season and what they feel like cooking. They make everything in-house, including bread, carta di musica (Sardinian-style crackers), pasta and ice cream. Away from classic pastas and proteins, dishes sometimes have a dainty, artistic touch, liable to elicit oohs and aahs as they’re put down.

You might start with oysters (a mainstay and crowd favourite) filled with sweet persimmon, chilli, shiraz caviar and alyssum flowers. The pasta is hand-rolled each morning, and the special could be plump agnolotti filled with rich oxtail, porcini and oregano; or chestnut rigatoni with local pine mushrooms and Parmigiano Reggiano. There’s often a fortnightly special of seafood and red meat plates, too.

Lakhi runs the roughly 100-bottle wine list, which contains picks from Australia, Italy, France and Argentina. Pick a bottle yourself or opt for the wine pairing set menu.

Lakhi and his wife and co-owner, Emilia, designed the interior to be as simple and down-to-earth as possible. It’s flanked by jagged exposed brick and whitewashed walls. There’s also a not-so-little black pig plastered up on the wall, enjoying the show with the rest of the guests.