Julie McCrossin, broadcaster and public speaker, from Sydney's inner west.

Where

Castelmola, Leichhardt

Why

"I've lived in the inner west all my adult life, since leaving my family home. I've eaten in a lot of Italian restaurants, and travelled in Italy, and I honestly think Castelmola is the best restaurant. It's consistently high quality and it's unpretentious. There's always a lot of Italian people in there.

"In the back room there's a TV. It's got that feeling of being part of the local community. It's very authentic.

"It doesn't have a huge menu but it's diverse and comprehensive, I know I can always get things I really like when I go there. It's Italian home cooking of the highest quality. You could be in Italy when you're there; they have a very egalitarian but quite authoritative way of serving you. The Italians are very comfortable at very good quality, but low-key service. There's a sense of occasion even though it's a family restaurant. I had my 60th birthday there recently and they could not have been more helpful. I felt that they wanted me to have a happy birthday.

"There's also a very personal connection, one of the best holidays I have had was walking on the Amalfi coast – it is unspeakably beautiful – we went across to Sicily, the food is enormously diverse and Castelmola is a little community in the craggy mountains, you can see Mount Etna, it's extremely beautiful. It's a very happy association."

What

"I often have fresh fish or barbecued seafood. I do like their pasta with seafood and they often have a pasta that's on special. I often just go with the special because I trust them. I'll have pasta as an entree and then go on to grilled fish or seafood.

"I cook extremely plain food. My mother was an extremely good cook. She cooked a lot of classic English food and, like a lot of women of the '60s, she went and had cooking classes. I am not an adventurous cook. I have four or five dishes I cook over and over again. I get good-quality food and cook very simply. Lots of steak and vegetables and salad and grilled fish. It's always been cruel that I'm overweight! I eat very healthy food – I just eat it for three."

About

"I'm back at work after recovering from stage-four throat cancer. I MC and facilitate conferences on sensitive topics. I'm already training for Coastrek 2015, the fundraising trek for the Fred Hollows foundation. I walked 30 kilometres in 2013, 10 kilometres in 2014 and am aiming for 55 kilometres in 2015. I've formed a team and we're going to go from Coogee to Balmoral. I'm literally out doing 10, 15 and 20 kilometre walks now – it's so great for my psychological recovery. Sydney is seriously as beautiful as the Amalfi [in south-west Italy]. These walks all around the harbour and the coast, it is just mind-bogglingly beautiful. I feel so lucky. It gives my enjoyment of life a heightened intensity."

CASTELMOLA

286 Norton Street, Leichhardt

9569 8814, castelmola.com.au 

Entrees, $4-$22.50; mains, $16-$35. $80 for two, plus drinks.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars 

Garlic, glorious garlic. Long may its potency be celebrated at Castelmola. I make no excuses for the fallout from my allium intake at Leichhardt's pocket of Sicilian goodness. In fact, I suggest you, too, join the club.

It's no secret that Norton Street has lost its mojo in recent years – shops in the Italian Forum lie empty while foot traffic heads elsewhere and restaurants clamour for business despite having fewer and fewer mouths to feed. It hasn't been an easy run for many in the Italian community and its supporters. Not so, I suspect, for Castelmola, which does a fine trade in takeaway pizza all week long and then swells with patrons later in the week.

It might not have the unpredictability or glorious, history-soaked chaos of Sicily – its menu is a tight, neat and well-practiced manifesto. But Castelmola is the real deal for those wanting to dip into home cooking with chutzpah. The blackboard is where things get a little more spirited, specials responding to what's in season, what's taking the chef's fancy and what's just plain-old good.

Earthy mushrooms with a gorgonzola sauce are generous and rich, its mild sauce perfect for sopping up with the sturdy, neutral bread designed to do just that.

We go for a special of gnocchi with veal ragu – the gnocchi is, as we were assured, light and thankfully not gluey, putting paid to the deadweight associations with which the potato pasta seems saddled. It is loaded with garlic, and I approve.

Julie McCrossin is absolutely on the nose with her summation of the service. We're treated with care and warmth, and with a knowing, ever-so steering authority that – almost before we knew it – had us trying what we might not usually order: the potato pizza rather than the margarita, the gnocchi rather than the papardelle. And both were great.

We take a BYO bottle of red, but the usual suspects are available behind the bar. It's a plain place with no airs or graces and, as McCrossin says, with a bit of a local's feel to it. Watch the soccer or ignore the screen and you'll feel a little closer to the real Castelmola.

Things get serious when our osso buco arrives – dark and rich, the sauce is (I imagine) like mama really used to make. The meat falls off the bone and its mashed potato plinth is more of a very good thing.

And then the pizza. Mio dio, it's a wonder of a construction. With translucent rounds of mandolin-cut potato, garlicky fennel sausage, chilli, rosemary and cheese, it is truly magnificent. And, like the whole lot, even better the next day.

It's all ballsy and delicious and doesn't feel diluted by Australian mores. It is home cooking from a genuine, spirited Sicilian kitchen … on Norton Street.