Libiyamo - Pyrmont

One of our friends has been going on about a restaurant in Pyrmont which serves awesome pizza. He said that his Italiano colleagues and friends all recommend this joint as the pizza is relatively authentic. So on one cold autumn night, we set out to check it out.

We ordered 4 pizzas, 2 pastas and a salad to share between the 6 of us. The pizzas were opted for were the Capricciosa, the Vegetariana, Romana, and the Margherita. All of the pizzas cam on a thin yet still chewy crust. The crispy and nicely burnt flavour from the wood-fired oven was a good addition, and a nice contrast, to the somewhat soggy middle of the pasta - made moist and floppy due to the thinness of the crust and tomato sauciness of the pizza. The toppings were quite appetising and whilst most of my friends found the anchovies on the Romana too salty, I thought that it was rather tasty.

Capricciosa - $23
ham, mushroom, italian sausage, roasted capsicum, mozzarella, tomato

Vegetariana - $22
Mushrooms, eggplant, olives, onion, roasted capsicum, tomato, mozzarella

Romana - $22
anchovies, capers, tomato, mozzarella

Margherita - $17
tomato, basil, mozzarella

For the pastas, we got sucked into the yummty description of the pasta of the day, which was a mud crab spaghetti with cherry tomatos. The pasta was flavoursome and rich, a touch on the salty side. And whilst there were massive chunks of crab lying on the side of a big heap of pasta, it was somewhat disappointing that there was no actual crab meat in the pasta itself. The other pasta was the tagliatelle al ragu di vitella. This was a tried and tested pasta (by our friends) but unfortunately, the chef must have misjudged the salt levels. Whilst the pasta was yummy and the veal was tender, it was sooooooo salty. We sent the pasta back to the kitchen and confused our waitress quite a bit by saying that we didn't want a new one.

pasta of the day - mud crab spaghetti

Tagliatelle al ragu di vitella - $24
house made tagliatelle with veal shoulder ragu slow cooked in white wine

The mixed garden salad comprised of lettuce, cherry tomatos and green olives. I don't eat olives but my friends all said that these were the best olives they have ever eaten.

mixed garden salad

The food here is good but probably not excellent. The pizza's are tasty but... we've probably had better elsewhere. The service here was rather apalling. I don't know if that's the norm, but our waitress looked really confused the whole night. We would order, she would give us a blank look in return. She asked if we wanted water. We said yes. She did not return with water until asked again. And if you're wanting a receipt... think again. We spent more than 10 minutes waiting for them to give us a receipt...which at the end, was a little docket with the correct 'total amount' but filled with items of things we did not order and none of the things we did.

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 5/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 27/40

Libiamo
2-14 Bunn St
Pyrmont
NSW 2009
Tel: (02) 9552 1509