The light, bright and beautiful Cibaria is a restaurant fit for Noosa

A local walks into Cibaria Noosa, takes a seat at its vast, low-set marble kitchen counter and orders pasta. A second local walks in, sits next to him and also orders pasta. They get chatting.

Turns out, they live five doors down from each other in Sunshine Beach. Afterwards, together, they head to the pub.

If Anna and Alessandro Pavoni wanted to create a restaurant for locals first, this little story that Anna tells is perhaps a sign they’re on their way to nailing it.

A restaurant for locals because the Pavonis know they’ll need them during the beach town’s off-season. They also know it creates more pressure to get it right.

“Definitely,” Anna says.

“[But] it’s been really pleasing so far. We’ve already had repeat customers … when people say to me, ‘Wow, this is really unique,’ or, ‘It’s really welcoming,’ or, ‘It’s really warm,’ or, ‘Gee, it’s really opened up and inviting,’ I think, ‘Okay, that’s good, we’ve done it.’”

Cibaria opens Monday after a series of soft services over the past few days.

And it is warm, open, inviting. The Pavonis intended the original Cibaria, which was unveiled in Manly in January, to capture the feeling of an Italian piazza. And this version two in the old Noosa Beach House premises looks well equipped to do the same, even if at first it’s hard to figure out what the Pavonis have changed about the front of the building.

In terms of the bones it’s relatively simple: they’ve removed the louvred glass that used to be above the front windows, and the internal glass that used to sit at the top of the stairs that leads up to what is now the dining room. It means the venue communes much more effectively with the street outside.

But there’s also the colour: Cibaria’s terracotta tiles and timber and warm lighting pops compared to the previous fit-out’s whiter-than-white treatment. From the street, it demands your attention.

“The old restaurant had the entrance up the laneway but it was all quite separate,” Anna says. “[Now], you have this really open, fluid venue.”

What you’re mostly seeing from the street is Bar Capri, a 100-seat all-day spot that serves classic and signature cocktails, Italian-leaning spritzes and a 30-bottle wine list.

For food, there are small plates such as fritto misto, scallop crudo and a poached rock lobster roll with burnt butter bisque and brioche, plus a short menu of easygoing larger plates: a wagyu cheeseburger (that uses provolone valpadana cheese), a tagliatelle bolognese and a 250-gram wagyu striploin, that kind of thing.

The bar also doubles as a breakfast venue in the morning, with a concise menu that includes zucchini on toast with stracciatella, eggs florentine, and a blue swimmer crab omelette.

Up the stairs, the restaurant proper is organised around the kitchen with its enormous counter. It’s a beautifully realised venue with its patterned tiled floors, marble surfaces and tiled table tops. There are smaller tables out front of the kitchen, larger ones out back towards the Elysium MGallery resort, which hosts the restaurant, and counter dining either at the kitchen or overlooking the laneway outside.

Overseeing the menu day to day is chef Lucas Bach. He and Alessandro Pavoni have arranged their dishes per the different sections of the kitchen: antipasteria, cruderia, braceria, forneria and spaghetteria.

Many of the dishes are recognisable classics, but given a funky facelift that doesn’t drift into stunt cooking.

Cibaria Noosa’s take on a prawn cocktail has you wrapping the poached crustaceans in baby cos before dipping them into vibrant salsa aurora, and a vitello tonnato clarifies the flavours of this classic Piedmont dish with a pungent, herbaceous tuna mayonnaise.

Other smaller plates include a kingfish crudo, a yellowfin tuna crudo, a woodfire-roasted eggplant parmigiana with parmigiano-reggiano cream, and spreadable lardo di colonnata alle erbe served with Sardinian-style flat bread.

Larger plates are mostly covered by pasta and items cooked on a pair of woodfired parrilla grills.

Expect pastas such as a bug pennette with a spicy vodka sauce, a rigatoni cacio e pepe, and a Queensland spanner crab risotto.

From the grill there are king prawns served with a chilli lemon salsa verde and mixed herbs, butterflied half spatchcock with a salmoriglio dressing, parsley and lemon, and a selection of steaks that include the afore mentioned striploin, a four-score CopperTree Reserve sirloin on the bone, and a one-kilo Rangers Valley Black Angus bistecca fiorentina.

Cibaria’s 180-bottle wine list (expect this to grow, Anna says) is drawn mostly from Italy, Australia and France, and favours producers with a focus on sustainability. There’s also a substantial selection by the glass, with 375-milliltre carafe pours available also.

Away from wine, there’s the Bar Capri cocktails and a generous list of beers, including 10 on tap.

It adds up to a venue that feels precisely pitched for its location and premises. Indeed, Anna reckons she and Alessandro might’ve picked a different concept from their Sydney-based Maestro Hospitality group – or a new concept altogether – if this long-dreamed Noosa incursion had landed in a different space.

“We would’ve done something different,” she says. “We’ve never replicated a concept. It’s just not what we do, right? So that in itself speaks to this site, that we couldn’t do anything except Cibaria.

“We walked through different ideas, but it would’ve been wrong doing something else when Cibaria felt so right.”

Open daily 11.30am-11pm (Bar Capri daily 7am-late)

Elysium Noosa Resort, 14-16 Hastings Street, Noosa Heads

cibarianoosa.au