Casa Carboni review, Barossa Valley best restaurants | delicious.SA: Regional 50

Casa Carboni delivers the kind of lunch you would be gushing about if it was part of an Italian holiday.

Ravioli del Plin at Casa Carboni, Angaston. Picture: Supplied

67 Murray St, Angaston

0415 157 669

casacarboni.com.au

Travelling to the Barossa? Check out our guide to the region.

Casa Carboni delivers the kind of lunch you would be gushing about if it was part of an Italian holiday. The pasta is perfect, the risotto a revelation, the vegetables plucked from a nearby farm.

Wedged between a sprawling hotel and a celebrated cheesemaker in the main street of Angaston, the little café/shop run by chef Matteo Carboni and his wife Fiona isn’t strictly a restaurant.

Depending on the day, the menu might have only a pasta and a dessert (though Friday dinner and Sunday lunch are more elaborate) and it doesn’t offer much in the way of flashy creativity.

However, it’s a true reflection of these people and their place.

A butcher’s backroom snack of fried mortadella is elevated by a vivid green splash of mustard leaf oil, while spears of asparagus, from a property “just down the road”, are enhanced by a drizzle of anchovy oil and flurry of aged goat’s cheese from next door.

Larger plates follow. An artichoke risotto is based on the bouillon in which the veg is poached and finished by stirring through the finely shredded heart, along with butter and parmesan.

The pasta course is equally restrained and you can almost see Matteo’s fingerprints on the crimped ravioli parcels that are filled with a mixture of braised beef and swiss chard puree.

For dessert, Matteo turns to his mum’s recipe of house-made amaretti biscuits, crushed and stirred into an egg custard mix that is baked in a similar way to a crème caramel but with a puddle of orange syrup on top.

Full list: See the best restaurants across all our regions

• Hours: L Thu-Mon 
• Bill: E $8-$25 M (shared) $30-$95 D $14. Sharing feast $85pp
• Wine: Wine list and BYO | Corkage $17
• Chef: Matteo Carboni