Salt Meats Cheese Cronulla

Salt Meats Cheese is a big, high-energy Italian trattoria in the heritage Banc building at Shop 1, 66-70 Cronulla Street, right in the Cronulla Mall pedestrian zone. Wood-fired pizza and handmade pasta are the backbone, cocktails and a bottomless lunch do the rest, and dogs are welcome at the outdoor footpath tables out front, so the beach-and-dinner combination works straight from the sand.

The dog setup

Dogs join you at the outdoor, footpath-fronting seating in the Cronulla Mall pedestrian zone; the indoor dining room stays dog-free. The outdoor row is roomy, with high-top tables and umbrellas for shade, and staff are known for bringing out water bowls without much prompting. The mall position means plenty of foot traffic, so a dog settled close to the table is the etiquette, and a weekday lunch beats the weekend rush if yours is crowd-shy.

The vibe

The menu covers antipasti and small plates (truffle mushroom arancini, calamari fritti, focaccia), wood-fired pizzas such as the Diavola and the sausage-loaded Pastore, handmade pasta with gnocchi favourites, and a signature tiramisu to finish. The bottomless lunch is the draw on weekends: $89 a head for an Italian shared feast with free-flowing spritzes, margaritas and espresso martinis, running Friday to Sunday. It gets loud and busy by dinner, which is part of the appeal unless you have a nervous dog.

Getting there and parking

Hours run from 4pm Monday to Thursday, midday on weekends, with Friday spanning a lunch and dinner service. Street parking on Cronulla Street and the surrounding blocks is competitive on sunny days; the Cronulla Mall car park and the Esplanade stations are the fallback, and Cronulla Station is a very short walk away on the T4 line.

While you're out there

The beachfront path and the Cronulla walk are minutes away for an on-leash stroll before you eat, with grass at Cronulla Park nearby. On the mall's cafe side, LOAF Cronulla, Blackwood Cronulla and Makers Daily are dog-friendly coffee stops, and Pilgrims Cronulla is the plant-based dinner alternative in the same strip.

Max: park once, walk the dog along the Esplanade, then claim a footpath table before the dinner crowd does.

More Sutherland Shire eating is on the New South Wales restaurants guide, or browse Cronulla for the suburb set.