I went to the new Sydney version of the Eat Pray Love pizzeria and got hit by a bin

For reasons I can’t remember, I saw Eat Pray Love when it was released in cinemas years ago. Spoiler: it’s bad! I figured the chances of ever rewatching Julia Roberts’ insipid, existential travelogue was less than the likelihood of buying a ticket to Melania. But when L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele opened at the north end of Sydney’s CBD in December, I found myself sitting down with Eat Pray Love again, albeit strictly for research.

The original Da Michele was built in Naples in 1906, and Roberts visits the pizzeria in the “Eat” part of EPL for a few slices and a polemic about the joy of gluttony or something. The scene lasts for less than two minutes, but it was more than enough tinder for Da Michele’s global expansion. The business – still owned by the family of founder Michele Condurro – now has 80 pizzerias in cities including Milan, London, Tokyo and Dubai. Saudi Arabia, it should be noted, has four.

The Pitt Street store is the company’s first in Australia, and – as is the case when an overseas chain comes to town – I wasn’t going in with high expectations. The space is loud and large and pumping with manufactured dolce vita. I spotted two Julia Roberts portraits on the walls, but there may have been more hanging among sepia-toned pictures of the founder and other Italian blokes. A browning Christmas tree, on life support near the entrance in mid-January, was mercifully disposed of by February.

Anyway, the pizza is actually quite good. Is it the best pizza in NSW, worthy of the hour-long queues the Naples location receives? No, but it can hold its own with any of Sydney’s dozen or so real-deal Neapolitan-style pizzerias from Cronulla to Parramatta.

Bases are thin and floppy and require folding, as per Naples tradition, and the sauce of Solea-brand tomatoes is fruity and tangy without being too acidic. Chewy crust? Charred leopard spots? Tick, tick. Most pizzas are covered in fat squiggles of Campinian fior di latte mozzarella and you should upgrade to the $22 “doppia” signature margherita for a double helping of the milky cheese. A standard margherita is $18 – ripper value in 2026.

Da Michele only serves four types of pizza at its original site, but Sydney and the other global outposts offer a lot more. The diavola is essentially a margherita with the least spicy “spicy salami” I’ve ever encountered; a vesuvio comes heaped with generous handfuls of torn ham and ricotta; the salsiccia and sauteed friarielli pizza is laden with grey-pink crumble of pork sausage that’s much tastier than it looks.

There are fried prawns and polenta triangles listed under antipasti, and three sugo-drenched meatballs that are underseasoned, but you wouldn’t kick ’em out of a sub. A lasagne is big on slow-cooked beefiness, but so soft it could almost be fed to a nursing home resident off solids; the “MUST TRY” (that’s the menu’s all-caps, not mine) pasta “cooked in a diced potato soup” is so removed of flavour it’s almost impressive. Paccheri alla Genovese is terrific, though: al dente pasta coated in braised and non-greasy chuck steak with sweetness from caramelised onions and spot-on seasoning.

The floor team is young, efficient and mostly Italian, and quick to spot an empty wine glass and ask if you would like another $12 pour of imported red. The only major service malfunction comes when I’m sitting at the bar and someone jolts my stool with a rubbish bin on wheels. It was an accident, but there’s no audible acknowledgement or apology. Do bins regularly trundle through a full restaurant at the original Da Michele, I wonder? I didn’t spot a rogue pattumiera hitting Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine