"Hobart’s best Italian from chef Matthew Breen: twenty communal seats, pasta within 50km of the door. Book it for a first date."
Templo is a softly lit shopfront on Patrick Street, on the fringe of Hobart’s CBD, with just twenty seats and a shared table that turns strangers into dinner companions. Chef-owner Matthew Breen has run it for the best part of a decade as a contemporary neighbourhood restaurant with an Italian soul, and it sits on The World’s 50 Best Discovery list as one of Tasmania’s defining tables. For the wider picture, see our Hobart dining guide.
Matthew Breen is a leading figure in Tasmania’s hyperlocal cooking, sourcing most ingredients within 50km of the door and scrawling the day’s menu on a blackboard beside the low-intervention wine list. Templo is famed above all for its pasta — bucatini tossed with fresh sardines, pickled shallots, currants, pine nuts and a sweet-sour agrodolce; chicory-stuffed agnolotti in the colder months. The daily-changing set menu runs around A$120 per person and changes with what arrives that week. Read our guide to the best Italian restaurants worldwide, or compare the produce-led cooking at Frank on the waterfront.
The room is tiny and warm: twenty seats, most of them at a communal table, with a few stools at the pass. The sound is convivial — you will talk to your neighbours — the lighting is low and glowing, and the spacing is deliberately close. Dress is smart-casual, service is friendly and clued-in on the wine, and the whole evening has the feel of a dinner party in a very good cook’s front room rather than a formal restaurant.
Book Templo for a first date if you want the room to carry the night: twenty seats and a shared table make conversation easy, with your neighbours as built-in icebreakers, and the daily set menu means no agonising over the card. The pasta is the talking point, the natural-wine list rewards a little adventure, and the price is honest for cooking this good. Book early, take the wine pairing, and let the blackboard decide. See more first-date restaurants.
Not for a private, hushed dinner — Templo seats twenty mostly at a shared table, so you will be elbow-to-elbow with strangers rather than tucked away alone.
Yes — many regard it as Hobart’s best Italian. Chef-owner Matthew Breen cooks a daily-changing set menu of pasta and Tasmanian produce sourced within 50km, in a 20-seat room on Patrick Street, and Templo sits on The World’s 50 Best Discovery list. At around A$120 per person it is strong value for cooking this considered. See our Hobart dining guide for more.
Templo seats just twenty, mostly at a communal shared table with a few counter stools, so book online well ahead — weekends fill weeks out. The menu is a daily-changing set menu rather than à la carte, written on a blackboard each day. If the date is flexible, a weeknight is easier to land and just as good for the full experience.
The pasta is the reason to come. Expect dishes like bucatini with fresh sardines, pickled shallots, currants, pine nuts and agrodolce, or chicory-stuffed agnolotti in winter, all part of the daily set menu at around A$120. Add the low-intervention wine pairing — the list is smart and a little adventurous — and let chef Matthew Breen’s blackboard guide the night.
It is excellent for a date and for small, sociable groups. The 20-seat room with its shared table makes conversation easy and turns neighbours into part of the evening, while the set menu removes any fuss over ordering. It is less suited to a private, hushed dinner. See our first-date guide for more Hobart options.
Book online well ahead — with only 20 seats and mostly communal dining, Templo fills weeks out for weekends.
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Templo earns a place for chef Matthew Breen’s daily pasta and Tasmanian produce in a 20-seat Hobart room.
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