Italian Restaurants in Haberfield: A Local's Guide to the Ramsay Street Precinct

We have cooked two kilometres from Haberfield since 1977, and we shop there like everybody else in the Inner West. So this is not a list assembled from a search engine — it is where we actually go, and what we actually buy.

One thing worth saying up front, because it saves people a wasted trip: Haberfield is a food-shopping street more than a restaurant street. If you are picturing a strip of trattorias with tables on the footpath, that is Leichhardt, five minutes away. What Haberfield has is better than that in its own way — the pasticcerie, the cheese shop, the pasta maker and the delis that supply half the Italian kitchens in Sydney, home ones included.

Why Haberfield Is Called Little Italy

Italian families settled around Ramsay Street after the Second World War and opened the shops their own households needed: bread, cured meat, cheese, pastries, fresh pasta. Those businesses never dispersed. Three generations on, the Italian trade is still concentrated on a few hundred metres of one street, which is why the strip still reads as Little Italy to anyone who walks it.

It is a slightly different story to Leichhardt's. Leichhardt became the Italian quarter earlier and went in the direction of restaurants and coffee — the places you sit down in. Haberfield went in the direction of provisions. Both are still doing what they started doing, which is rarer than it sounds.

The other thing holding the street together is the architecture. Haberfield was laid out in the early 1900s as a planned garden suburb, and the housing stock has been protected from the knock-down-rebuild cycle that reshaped most of the Inner West. Nothing has been assembled into a large site, so the shopfronts on Ramsay Street are still the small, narrow, family-sized ones they were built as. That is not a nostalgic detail — it is the practical reason a formaggeria and a bakery can still afford to be there, and why the street has not been replaced by a supermarket and a chain café.

The result is a strip where the person serving you often has their surname above the door. It also means the trading is old-fashioned in ways that catch visitors out: cash-preferred counters, ticket numbers, midday closing, and no interest whatsoever in your dinner plans if you have arrived at four in the afternoon.

The Haberfield Italian Food Map

Nearly everything worth stopping for sits between numbers 88 and 177 on Ramsay Street, so you can do the lot on foot in an hour.

Restaurants Versus the Food Shops

This is the distinction visitors get wrong most often, and it decides whether the trip works.

The food shops keep shop hours. They are at their best in the morning and they wind down in the afternoon; several close on Mondays. Sunday morning is the classic Haberfield run — bread, ricotta, cannoli, home by lunch — and it is also when the queues are longest.

For dinner, the sit-down options on Ramsay Street are genuinely limited. La Disfida covers pizza well. Beyond that, most people who have spent the morning shopping in Haberfield end up eating in Leichhardt, because that is where the restaurants are.

How to Do the Ramsay Street Run

There is an order that works, and it is not the order you would guess. Ours goes like this.

Bread first, because it sells out. Cassaniti before ten if it is a weekend. Then the deli counter at Lamonica while you are still at that end — mortadella and porchetta cut to order, and the pantry shelves are worth ten minutes even if you did not come for them.

Cheese and pasta in the middle. Paesanella for ricotta, and Peppe's for whatever pasta you are actually going to cook that day. A tray of gnocchi is the single best-value thing on the street: four minutes in boiling water and a lunch that tastes like it took the morning.

Pastries last, on the way back to the car, so the cannoli spend the least possible time in a warm boot. Pasticceria Papa fills them to order for a reason — a cannolo that has sat in its shell for an hour has gone soft and the whole point is gone.

Two warnings. Sunday morning is the best time for atmosphere and the worst for queues and parking; if you can go on a weekday you will be through in half the time. And take cash — several counters still prefer it, and the one that does not will not mind.

Getting There, and Parking

Ramsay Street runs off Parramatta Road, and there is free street parking along it and in the surrounding streets — easier on a weekday, tight on Sunday morning. The 480 and 483 buses run along Parramatta Road. There is no train station in Haberfield itself; the closest light rail is the L1 Dulwich Hill line through Leichhardt, which is a walk or a short drive away.

Just Past Haberfield: the Leichhardt Italian Quarter

Haberfield and Leichhardt sit either side of Parramatta Road, about two kilometres and five minutes apart. If you have spent the morning on Ramsay Street and want to sit down to dinner rather than cook what you have bought, Leichhardt is where the older restaurants are — Norton Street and the streets around it.

That is where we are, and we should be straight about it: La Botte D'Oro is in Leichhardt, not Haberfield. We are at 137 Marion Street, a five-minute drive from the Ramsay Street shops. We have been there since 1977, we make our pasta by hand, and the pizza comes out of a wood-fired oven that has been running the whole time.

People come to us from Haberfield often enough that it is worth mentioning — usually after a christening at one of the local churches, or when a family lunch has grown past the size of anybody's dining table. If that is you, the menu is here and private dining and venue hire is here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Haberfield called Little Italy?

Italian families settled around Ramsay Street after the Second World War and opened the pasticcerie, salumerie and cheese shops that are still trading there. The Italian businesses have stayed clustered on a few hundred metres of one street, which is why the strip reads as Little Italy — even though Leichhardt, two kilometres away, is the older Italian quarter.

What is the best Italian food in Haberfield?

It depends what you are after, because Haberfield is stronger for shopping than for dining. For pastries, Pasticceria Papa. For cheese and fresh ricotta, Paesanella. For fresh pasta and gnocchi, Peppe's Pasta. For bread, Cassaniti. For wood-fired pizza and an actual sit-down dinner, La Disfida.

How far is Leichhardt from Haberfield?

About two kilometres — a five-minute drive along Parramatta Road, or a twenty-five minute walk. Haberfield's Italian strip is Ramsay Street; Leichhardt's is Norton Street and the streets around it, including Marion Street.

Is Haberfield or Leichhardt better for Italian food?

They do different jobs. Haberfield is where you shop — pasticcerie, a formaggeria, a fresh pasta shop, delis, mostly daytime trade. Leichhardt is where you sit down to dinner, with the older restaurants and the longer history. Most people who live here use both, and so do we.