Old Friend

A self-taught eye on the pass

The menu moves by pairing before it moves by course at Old Friend in Cagliari, where Dario Torabi cooks as executive chef. Torabi is self-taught, and the cooking crosses Sardinian product with a Persian inheritance and whatever else the pairing asks for, which is why it sorts neither as strictly Sardinian nor as Italian. He has put the reason plainly: “I had long felt the need to offer creative and personal cuisine.” Old Friend is not built around rustic quotation or a museum idea of Sardinia. It asks for control: acidity held cleanly, richness cut before it grows heavy, a plate allowed to carry more than one geography without losing its island footing.

Torabi returned to Sardinia and opened the restaurant in 2016, then moved in 2020 to a custom-built downtown room on Via Giuseppe Abba, with wall paintings by local artist Emanuele Boi, known as Skan. The cooking has stayed personal rather than doctrinal. Sardinian product sets the ground, then the kitchen pushes it outward through Persian inflection, market fish, raw milk cheese, biodynamic vegetables, and combinations that do not sort neatly into local or imported habits.

No partitions between first and last bites

Old Friend’s menu resists the old sequence of appetizer, main, and close. A compact à la carte list sits beside tasting menus, and the kitchen lets seasonal supply decide the shape of the pass. The signatures show the method plainly: risotto with bagna cauda; raw fish with pico de gallo and bottarga; conchiglioni pasta with mutton ragu. Elsewhere the hand gets more oblique, as in lamb chordula with lentils, black lemon, oyster, and beurre blanc, or beef tartare set in a crab shell with a Russian-salad-like pulp, arugula, and fried breadcrumbs for a shore-sand crunch.

The sourcing stays close without becoming narrow. Shepherd’s sheep and lambs, Sa Marchesa raw milk cheeses, vegetables from San Benedetto market, Cocchiland biodynamic produce, and fish bought directly from boats all appear in the restaurant’s account of its pantry. The technique changes with the material: roasting, pickling, whole-animal work, caramelization taken near the bitter edge, seafood heads squeezed over coals for a tarragon-scented plate. The Michelin Guide has recognized the bistro with a Bib Gourmand; the award belongs to this address.

The room carries the tempo

The room is intimate, fresh, and informal enough to let the cooking stay close to the table. Background music sits under conversation; the room can carry some acoustic strain, but the mood remains more studio than salon. Skan’s painted walls give the space a made surface rather than a decorated one, and that suits a kitchen whose plates often begin with familiar Sardinian matter before turning it through another register.

The beverage program follows the same line of thought. Natural wine leads the list, with a curated cellar that serves the tasting menu rather than standing apart from it. Pairings matter here because the food often turns on friction: bottarga against citrus heat, mutton ragu against pasta shell, black lemon against offal and oyster. What stays is not a summary of Sardinia but a single plate: conchiglioni with mutton ragu at Old Friend.