A new cafe and pasta bar opening on Macquarie Street will offer authentic Italian cuisine and a home away from home for coffee lovers.
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Vita Felice is set to offer people in Dubbo a new experience, with "really nice pastas, risottos and amazing coffee".
"We're just going to have a really fresh, friendly vibe," Andrea Ayling, owner and head chef, told the Daily Liberal.
The cafe will be open from Monday to Saturday for breakfast and lunch, and Thursday to Saturday evenings for the pasta bar.
Ms Ayling said it would offer "authentic Italian food in a really nice setting".
The pasta bar will be complemented by dishes of "the likes of your seared salmon, scotch fillet steak, we'll do a beautiful Venetian-style crumbed chicken, an authentic parmigiana," Ms Ayling said.
![Andrea Ayling, owner and head chef of Vita Felice. Picture by Belinda Soole Andrea Ayling, owner and head chef of Vita Felice. Picture by Belinda Soole](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/QQwHRnUv9qYdvjDNLdqaup/545e2d3e-8fa6-40b0-b160-4b00917f848b.jpg/r0_0_7839_5209_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Ms Ayling grew up in Dubbo and runs Burger Babe, a popular food truck.
The idea for the pasta bar came from living and working in Mildura where she used to frequent an eatery with a huge menu of pastas, risottos and pizzas, which she described as "incredible".
"You could see into the kitchen where they were cooking it. It had an awesome vibe. I wanted to take something like that back to Dubbo".
That was 20 years ago, and now Ms Ayling is doing her "own version" of that pasta bar.
BYO will be available at dinner time for people to bring their favourite bottle of wine and have a meal, and during lunch office workers will be able to grab a takeaway panini as well as cakes and slices, all made in house.
Ms Ayling said she had worked her way around kitchens in Dubbo, including at the Old Bank Restaurant, Press Cafe, Short Street Cafe, and The Milestone Hotel.
When working at the Old Bank Restaurant, she began striving for what she claims to be the "perfect burger", and this idea came with her to Burger Babe, the food truck she opened a few years ago.
Ms Ayling described herself as the sort of person who obsesses over things. Her burgers are gourmet, American-style with "fresh ingredients and big flavours".
![The Burger Babe food truck (left) and a burger. Pictures from Instagram @burger_babe79 The Burger Babe food truck (left) and a burger. Pictures from Instagram @burger_babe79](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/QQwHRnUv9qYdvjDNLdqaup/3bd2f2bc-3263-4f73-a54a-50b7bc2bfc00.png/r0_0_1200_675_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"I watch nothing but cooking challenges. I'm constantly buying cookbooks. My collection is ridiculous. I'm always educating myself, always looking for that amazing chef overseas who is doing something amazing."
The burgers at Burger Babe are based on the "smash burger style". Ms Ayling has her butcher make up the perfect mince mixture of short rib and sirloin for the right fat-to-lean-meat ratio.
She takes a ball of mince and places it on a searing hot grill and smashes it down with a cast iron weight.
"It gets hit with smoky salt straight away. It literally takes 30 seconds to cook. It's amazing and juicy and brown, and you chuck your cheese on."
The most popular choice is the cheeseburger.
"People love a good cheeseburger. I can't tell you the amount of people who come up to us and say, my goodness, that was the best cheeseburger I've had."
Vita Felice is at 134 Macquarie Street, Dubbo.