WØRKS On Hand: Fugazzi

The name is New York slang for a fake. The Michelin recognition is very real.

There’s a laneway off Leigh Street in Adelaide’s financial district, tucked between tall red-brick apartment buildings, where a green canvas awning hangs over a doorway. The lettering on it is white and confident and looks like it wandered off the cover of a New York magazine. Walk under it and you’ll get the strangest feeling that you’ve been here before.

You probably haven’t. That feeling was designed.

Sixty years of Rigoni’s

For more than six decades this was Rigoni’s, the Leigh Street bistro where politicians, lawyers and journalists came to be seen (or, just as often, not seen). When it closed in 2019 the city treated it like a small bereavement, and the site sat waiting.

In 2020 a deal was struck with a new ownership group: restaurateur Simon Kardachi of Shōbōsho and Osteria Oggi, Justin Lane, and chefs Laura and Max Sharrad of Nido, the much-loved pasta restaurant in Hyde Park. They signed the lease when the future of hospitality felt genuinely uncertain, and opened Fugazzi on 1 May 2021.

Photo: Jonathan VDK, courtesy of Studio Gram

The Sharrads

Most of Australia knows Laura Sharrad from MasterChef. She first appeared in 2014, returned for the All Stars season in 2020 and won the title outright in 2025. Max is a chef with a sharp, generous instinct for Italian food. The pair had been talking about a place like Fugazzi since the early days of their relationship: Italian-American cooking taken up to restaurant level, with some dishes finished at the table.

That’s what they built. The menu is bold and buzzy, unashamedly Italian with the odd ingredient borrowed from elsewhere. It’s popular enough that Adelaide now asks who hasn’t eaten here rather than who has. Nigella Lawson has. So, reportedly, has Axl Rose.

The room

The fit-out is by Studio Gram (the same Adelaide practice behind Arkhé) with Graham Charbonneau, Dave Bickmore, Tess Sporn and Sam Broadbridge on the project. Design People did the identity.

Where Arkhé is restraint, Fugazzi is abundance. Studio Gram calls it an Italo-New York bar and dining room that blurs the line between today and yesterday. Velvet, leather, marble, inlaid geometric offcuts and custom joinery shelving are layered on top of each other until the whole thing tips into glorious excess. There are cobblestone floors and a dramatic arched ceiling. The central banquette is curtained in velvet, shaped to mimic an old Italian bottega servery.

Photo: Jonathan VDK, courtesy of Studio Gram

The plan is cleverer than it first looks. The entrance was narrow, so Studio Gram turned it into a dark, moody standalone bar that also services the brighter dining room beyond. Two different experiences, one venue.

And the name? It’s a knowing wink. “Fugazzi” is mafia slang for a fake, made famous by a scene in The Wolf of Wall Street. A room this lavish, named for something that isn’t real, never tips into pastiche because it’s in on its own joke.

The design world was in on it too. Fugazzi received commendations for both Best Restaurant Design and Best Bar Design at the 2021 Eat Drink Design Awards, with a third commendation for Design People’s identity work. A few years later Studio Gram returned to build Fugazzi Basement, a private underground room with the feel of a film set.

The food

Photo: Jonathan VDK, courtesy of Studio Gram

Michelin’s inspectors described Fugazzi as a polished, New York inspired take on Italian dining, singling out the handmade pasta and the wood grill. In particular: silky tagliarini with hand-picked blue swimmer crab, an indulgent gnocco fritto, and the much-discussed tiramisu, finished at the table with a flourish.

They weren’t the first to notice. In 2023, delicious. named Fugazzi the best pasta in South Australia in its 100 awards.

What Michelin Selected means

It’s worth being clear, because it’s easy to get wrong. Michelin Selected is not a star. It’s the guide’s main selection: restaurants the inspectors rate highly and recommend without reservation. Across all of South Australia, fifty restaurants made it.

For a restaurant that’s already this busy, it’s less a discovery than a confirmation. The inspectors simply arrived at what Adelaide worked out in 2021.

The basin

Photo: Jonathan VDK, courtesy of Studio Gram

You’d think a room this rich would want something equally ornate by the tap. It doesn’t. In a space where every surface is talking, a minimalistic glass bottle with nothing to prove holds its own.

Our Bergamot Wash and Balm cut through the evening the way a squeeze of lemon cuts through crab pasta. Crisp bergamot peel, neroli flower, cedarwood. The Wash is a true liquid soap from organic olive and coconut oils, no sulphates and no synthetic detergents. The Balm softens without leaving a trace on the wine glass you’re about to pick back up.

Browse Bergamot →

Fugazzi Bar & Dining Room · 27 Leigh Street, Adelaide SA 5000 · fugazzi.com.au

More from this series: Australia’s first Michelin stars · Arkhé · Anvers

Header photo: Jonathan VDK, courtesy of Studio Gram