Quarterly Favourites - 2025 Summer

Here are some of my favourite’s from Nov/Dec/Jan of 2025-26, Hope you enjoy!

Norcino - Italian Restaurant in Pyrmont

I went to Norcino for my end of year dinner with my team at work, and it is now my favourite italian (perhaps even european) restaurant in sydney!

They were generous with portion sizes, and served us some incredible cheese, cured meats and pasta. I also think it’s my #1 spot for tirimisu!

I really recommened going if you have an occasion to celebrate and want somewhere with amazing food and service, but still comfortable and not incredibly pricy. For us it came to around $100pp including lots of drinks.

The Japanese Art of Pickling and Fermenting - Cookbook

This book is incredibly gorgous, and has lots of unique recipes that are your ‘off the beaten path’ traditional japanese picking and fermenting recipes. They range from quick “asazuke” pickles that can be made in less than an hour, to full 3month long ferments.

Although the author is based in melbourne, I found that a lot of the ingredients can be a bit hard to source (e.g. unripe ume plums (where even the ripe ones can’t be bought), fresh yuzu etc…)

I also recommende checking out her instagram @cookingwithkoji, she makes really beautiful japanese breakfasts and posts them almost every morning.

Real Japanese Cooking by Makiko Itoh - Cookbook

I got this cook book from better read than dead while it was on display for it’s launch earlier this year. I interested me since it seemed to have alot of home-cooking recipes that I don’t usually see in japanese cook books, but I was really surprised to find that it ended turning into one of my most reached for cook books ever!

It’s really not being talked about much, and has disapeared from alot of bookstores after only a couple months of being released, but

This is a compendium of around 600 japanese recipes that is written for people living outside of japan learning to cook japanese food. It has your basics such as info about pantry staples and simple miso soup recipes, but also manages to fit in complex recipes like japanese milk bread, growing koji mould and a whole QnA spread about troubleshooting your nukadoko pickling bed.

I found that almost every recipe had simple ingridents that were easy to find at an asian/japanese grocer and the steps are both detailed and easy to follow.

Some recipes I’ve enjoyed:

• Ogura Toast — Red bean paste on toasted japanese bread. I wouldn’t have known to put these things together as it’s so simple that it doesn’t get mentioned elsewhere.
• Tomato Ohitashi — cold tomato and savoury sauce side dish, which really brings out the salt and tomato falvour pairing