Bar Infinita is an Italian restaurant with two key traits: a woodfired pizza oven and a head chef from Naples. If ever you were going to find pizza on a menu, it would be here. But no.

“I understand,” head chef Francesco Iervolino tells Broadsheet. “Everyone thinks of Napoli and they think of traditional pizza. But for this concept I’ve decided to be different.

“It’s exciting to showcase that a woodfire oven is not only for pizza.” (Spoken like a true alumnus of the Lennox Hastie school of cooking.)

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Iervolino worked at the hallowed hearth of Hastie’s seminal restaurant, Firedoor, as a senior chef de partie from 2020 to 2022. His time there – combined with his more traditional Italian training at Alessandro Pavoni’s Ormeggio and the legendary, much-missed Paddington institution Lucio’s – is what’s led to the flame-licked menu of Italo classics Gordon locals are enjoying today.

So, the closest thing you’ll get to pizza from that oven is the puffed-up Totti’s-esque flatbread, glazed with rosemary oil and salt. (Get a couple of these, some charcuterie and a burrata stuffed with pesto and you have a full meal right there in the starters section.) Iervolino got a taste for cooking with the embers of ironbark at Firedoor and chooses Blue Mountains ironbark to fuel his flames.

“It’s one of the best ironbarks I’ve worked with,” he says. “The heat retention on the embers is great, and it gives a very unique flavour.”

You can taste it in the steaks, each of which, from the affordable beef flank to a hefty one-kilo Riverina T-bone, is cooked in the oven. They all come served with caramelised onions and mushroom puree – complemented by Italian-ish steakhouse sides (like grilled broccolini with ricotta salata).

There’s a ripper range of house-made pastas too, mainly inspired by weekends Iervolino spent on the Amalfi Coast growing up. You’ll find lobster linguine, spaghetti vongole, squid ink tagliolini and mafaldine with a classic ragu. There’s antipasti, a range of crowd-pleasing smaller bites and a nice – and concise – range of Italian cheeses. For dessert, there’s the compulsory tiramisu and affogato, but the standout is an ode to Amalfi Coast citrus. Lemon mousse, with a yolk of lemon jam, masquerades as a whole lemon – leaf and all.

The wine list, put together in part by wine expert Giorgio de Maria, is mostly Italian. There are a few local drops and some representatives from Salina, an island north of Sicily where co-owner Elizabeth Tamana’s family is from. The rest of the drinks hew Italian, and shockingly there are cocktails – spritzes, Negronis – under 20 dollars. (One of the benefits of dining in the ‘burbs.)

Bar Infinita looks great: there’s a clear amount of care and attention to detail. The ice cubes are embossed with the infinity symbol, and the warm wood, burgundy and terrazzo-heavy fit-out is by Giant Design. There are stools at the bar, tables good for family meals, and a summer-friendly al fresco area on the street.

When Broadsheet visited, Bar Infinita had been open for exactly a week and was doing a lively trade. Locals seem to love having it as an option, and murmurs of “It’s great for the area” were heard from every table at some point. And, right next to the train station, it’s easy to check out – even if you’re not a local.

Bar Infinita
10 St Johns Avenue, Gordon

Hours:
Wed & Thu 4.30pm–10pm
Fri & Sat 4.30pm–11pm
Sun 4.30pm–10pm

barinfinita.com.au
@barinfinita