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Spaghetti & Spritz Bar
Thanks to Pendulum Communications for the invite to a menu tasting. But first it's refreshments of The Pash Me Spritz - Vermouth bianco, passionfruit, prosecco, soda ($18)
and the classic Florence Spritz - Aperol, Prosecco, Fever Tree Soda ($16). Both enjoyed and there's plenty of other Spritz variations on the menu to tempt. Starters consisted of a few of vegan dishes. Cece - Chickpea hummus, farro, schiacciata ($14) was tasty and easy to share and the Caprese - Soy mozzarella, heirloom tomato, basil, lemon vinaigrette ($18) could probably fool a few like myself with its soy-based cheese. The Fiori di Zucca - Zucchini flower, smoked almond curd, romesco ($15, 2 pieces) had an excellent crispy batter and was one of my favourite dishes of the day. Back to something meaty was the Polpette - Adrian’s meat balls, slow cooked tomato sugo ($18, 3 pieces) that was good but comes at a price of $6 a meat ball so probably best not to expect to fill up on this dish alone.
Pushing the flavour boundary for a vegan pasta is the Charcoal Bucatini - Smoked mushroom pancetta, vegan egg yolk, plant based parmesan ($26). I enjoyed the richness and clever vegan egg yolk although it might take me a while to get used to the mild gritty texture of the charcoal in this dish. The Blue Spirulina Tagliatelle - Blue swimmer crab, bottarga, pangrattato ($34) had gutsy crab and bottarga flavour with plenty of garlic added for good measure. The eye-catching greenish blue colour is probably setting itself up to be one of their signature instagrammable dishes. Back to another vegan pasta the Zucchini Linguini (The Impasta) - Chickpea ragu, cherry tomato, slow cooked tomato sugo ($22) is gluten free and retains a pleasant crunch from the zucchini and crispy pop from some deep fried chick peas. Hard to go past the Vegan No-tella Ravioli - Cacao nibs, raspberry, coconut ice-cream ($18) for dessert. A flakier pastry is the only thing that could improve this for me. I didn't realise Nutella wasn't vegan so this housemade No-tella hits the spot as a vegan friendly substitute. Mark Filippelli, Vince Pizzinga and chef Adrian Januloski have certainly created quite a unique menu for Sydney diners and I like how there's a good selection of both vegan and non-vegan dishes which I think will suit a wider audience.
