Flaminia is one of Sydney’s flashiest new restaurants for harbourfront Italian and fresh seafood.
Flaminia Restaurant has brought Circular Quay to life. It is a harbourfront Italian restaurant that feels genuinely rooted in place, yet unmistakably transportive with some of the best interior design of any restaurant in the area.
Set on Level 2 of the Pullman Quay Grand Sydney Harbour at Circular Quay, it trades in the city’s most in-demand luxury travel commodity—a front-row Sydney Harbour view—then backs it up with designer pedigree, polish and a creative seafood-forward menu designed to be enjoyed slowly.
I was thrilled to discover it is currently serving one of Sydney’s best martinis, a 3P Martini flavoured with tomato, basil and garlic which is absolutely extraordinary. It is truly a world class drink – and quite literally tastes like Bruschetta in a glass.I had to hold myself back to have a second it was just so good.
A harbourside dining room that gets the brief
Interiors are by Studio Gram (the Adelaide design studio behind venues Fugazzi, Arkhe and Osteria Oggi), and the space is seriously upscale and creative and cleverly and elegantly nods to Flaminia’s seafaring story.
The restaurant is named after the ship that carried the family to Australia in 1959, and the design language follows suit: warm timber, textured stone, shoreline tones, and curves that quietly reference a ship’s geometry—think curved banquettes, sculptural lines, and a sense of flow that mirrors the water outside.
What makes Flaminia feel upmarket isn’t just the address or the abundant natural light. It’s the design, and possibly even the subtle restraint: materials feel expensive, but not shouty; the atmosphere is relaxed, but sharply finished. It’s a dining room that shifts with the harbour’s mood—blue hour cocktails as ferries slice past, then a nighttime sheen as Circular Quay lights glitter in the glass.
There’s also a sense of theatre where it matters, with a central crudo bar is positioned as the restaurant’s beating heart, designed for that quietly thrilling luxury ritual—watching an expert effortlesly hand slice fish and shuck oysters with bar seating around.
The chef: a Sydney institution, now in a new chapter
Flaminia has been created by respected Sydney food icons Giovanni Pilu and Marilyn Annecchini, the team behind Pilu at Freshwater, one of Sydney’s long-running special-occasion dining rooms (and the restaurant that cemented Pilu’s reputation for regional Italian cooking and hospitality).
This new venue is notable not only because it’s their first new opening in decades, but because it’s a deliberate shift in focus: where Pilu at Freshwater is strongly Sardinian, Flaminia celebrates Italy’s great port cities—which is so fitting for a restaurant perched above Australia’s most famous working harbour.
It’s what gives Flaminia its particular identity: less locked to one region, more of a curated coastal journey—Cagliari, Naples, Genoa, Venice, Palermo and beyond—while still keeping Sardinia as an emotional anchor.
The menu: “trattoria del mare”, anchored by impeccable seafood
The kitchen’s organising principle is simple and smart: you’re dining on the water, so the food should feel like it belongs there.
The crudo bar leads, with seafood treated in that confident, minimal way coastal Italy does best—beautiful product, restrained dressing, maximum freshness. The seafood is selected then there is a choice of sauce to go with it – truly unique. I loved the concept of being able to choose each and pair them.
Oysters and daily fish are sourced at Sydney Fish Market, with particular attention paid to provenance (including Sydney rock oysters from Tuross Lakes)—a detail that reads as luxury because it signals attention to detail and to quality ingredients.
The menu changes often, In the crudo bar’s orbit you’ll find dishes built around pristine species—Bermagui yellowfin tuna is a recurring hero, and the offering can include premium selections like Abrolhos Island scallops, dressed with regional Italian cues (for example Genoa-inspired accents such as Taggiasca olives and preserved lemon, or Cagliari notes like shaved fennel and bottarga).
Even the structure of the menu reads as experience-led, as it is arranged around “ports” or pillars, and everything is designed to share, and diners are invited to mix and match the various categories of snacks, entrees and mains which creates a festive very relaxed, fun vibe.
Flaminia leans into the kind of Italian coastal food that photographs beautifully but tates even better. Bold, bright, and fundamentally uncomplicated.
A few standouts that define the kitchen’s style:
- Baccalà mantecato: a Venetian classic—whipped salt cod piled onto toast—exactly the sort of aperitivo-friendly opener that suits pre-theatre and golden-hour dining.
- Mozzarella in carrozza: a Neapolitan street-food favourite—fried mozzarella sandwich—here finished with anchovy and a hit of peppery richness.
- Gamberi alla Catalana: a Sardinian-leaning dish of prawns with tomato, pickled onion and celery, delivering that crisp Mediterranean balance of sweet, acid and crunch.
- Piccolo fritto misto: golden fried seafood with a bottarga-spiked mayo—sunny, salty, and made for sparkling wine or a spritz.
- Paccheri allo scoglio: large tube pasta with calamari, mussels, vongole, white fish and cherry tomatoes—an ideal “harbour lunch” order that tastes like a holiday itinerary.
- Spaghetti alla bottarga: described with house-made pasta, spanner crab, lemon myrtle and house bottarga—an interesting Australia-meets-Italy moment that still feels faithful to the coastline brief.
A share-style journey is also on offer available for diners who want the restaurant to steer.
Dessert stays classic and coastal—think Italian tradition rather than modernist reinvention—like crema fritta and pandolce Genovese, finishing the meal with that sunny, old-world sweetness people want from a proper Italian dining room.
Drinks: Italian coastal energy, Sydney-level execution
A luxury travel-style restaurant lives or dies on atmosphere—and drinks play a starring role. Flaminia is built for aperitivo hour, and the beverage program leans into that breezy coastal mood with spritz-friendly energy and smart pairings for seafood.
As already mentioned in the introduction above, one cocktail getting attention is the “3P Martini”—pitched as a “bruschetta-like” martini with tomato water, basil and a touch of garlic. It’s the sort of playful signature that becomes a talking point, especially for out-of-towners collecting Sydney’s best new openings.
The luxury verdict
For travellers (and Sydney locals who live like travellers), Flaminia hits an increasingly important sweet spot: it feels elevated without being stiff, cinematic without being contrived, and deeply Sydney while telling a story that begins in Italy and ends right here at the harbour’s edge.
Its greatest strength is coherence—design, location, menu and narrative all pull in the same direction, which is exactly what separates a “nice new restaurant” from a destination dining experience.
