Enoteca Lounge and Cucina, Rundle St, Adelaide | SA Weekend restaurant review

The daughter of the owners of esteemed Adelaide eatery Enzo’s has opened a new Rundle St restaurant targeting a vastly different audience.

Natalie Fazzari and Alessandro Ennor have opened Enoteca Lounge and Cucina on Rundle St in the CBD.

Following in the footsteps of a high-achieving parent can be a double-edged sword.

The knowledge soaked up from an early age is invaluable, the opportunities attractive.

On the other hand, this legacy also has the potential to create unjustified expectations and comparisons.

Natalie Fazzari, daughter of the chef/owner/namesake of legendary Italian diner Enzo’s, is navigating all this now.

She and fiance Alessandro Ennor have just opened their own venture, a restaurant and bar in the East End, and the coverage has predictably focused on the family connection.

Inside Enoteca Lounge and Cucina in Rundle St in the CBD. Picture: Supplied

Enoteca Lounge and Cucina, however, is a vastly different proposition to Enzo’s, targeting a different audience and a different generation.

Ennor met Fazzari when they worked on the floor at Enzo’s together and a friendship grew into a romance and then a proposal.

Vague plans about their future became very real when they heard about a vacant property in Rundle St.

That space is now split between dining at the front and a lounge/bar at the rear, with bi-fold windows opening to Ebenezer Place that look custom-made for summer aperitivo.

Spaghetti with blue swimmer crab and silverbeet at Enoteca Lounge and Cucina. Picture: Supplied

The restaurant’s interior, says Ennor, has been inspired by the chic, contemporary venues of his hometown Milan.

This translates into wooden floors, splashes of black and striking crimson upholstery that covers chairs, banquettes and deep booths suited to larger groups but hard work for waiters.

A glass-and-metal wine locker updates the traditional cellar.

Unlike Enzo’s, neither of the owners are chefs, so they have put their contemporary dining vision in the hands of Luca Guiotto, who moved from northern Italy to work in Sydney restaurants 14 years ago and most recently ran the kitchen at iTL, part of SkyCity Adelaide.

Cured kingfish with vongole dressing. Picture: Supplied

While his menu has a few modern twists and turns, at this stage it sticks to mostly familiar cucina and, in general, pulls it off well.

A fine croquette of royal blue potato, for instance, is pimped up with a touch of truffle and a surprise soft centre of Monte Rosso, a taleggio-style cheese from local producer Section 28.

Raw kingfish benefits from a short, firming cure and a dressing powered by the salty juices of vongole that acts as the perfect seasoning. Pistachios, orange segments and dill (fronds and oil) provide arty finishing touches.

Caramelised onion and ricotta tortelli with peas and asparagus. Picture: Supplied

From a quartet of pastas, a mound of spaghetti chitarra is strewn with a hefty serve of blue swimmer and wilted ribbons of silverbeet that works well against the crab’s sweetness. A bisque sauce has plenty of crustacean brass upfront but needs some background strings to balance the symphony.

Sombrero-shaped tortelli are filled with a blend of ricotta and caramelised onion, cooked to the second and dunked into a green pond of pea puree. Spears of asparagus and lemon oil complete a fitting seasonal tribute.

The tiramisu gelato sandwich at Enoteca Lounge and Cucina is delivered in collaboration with Bottega Gelateria. Picture: Supplied

The kitchen’s charcoal-fired Josper oven gives a lovely dark crust to a piece of grass-fed scotch fillet, cooked medium rare as requested and napped with a peppercorn sauce given extra depth with a touch of black garlic.

By comparison, the market fish, a fillet of saltwater barramundi, rather misses the boat, the skin crisp but flesh dry and lacking any lustre, a gloopy saffron velouté not doing it any favours.

To finish, lemon thyme adds an intriguing edge to the flavour of an exemplary panna cotta that sits in a puddle of raspberry coulis and is dusted with a chocolate crumble.

And that “tiramisu”, developed in collaboration with Bottega Gelateria, is a triple-treat of coffee, mascarpone and zabaglione flavours wedged between two wafers. You’ll enjoy it more if you don’t compare it to the original.

And that pretty much is the take-home message for Enoteca as a whole.

It will take time for the restaurant to develop its own character and particularly to build a service team with the warmth and professionalism that is Enzo’s greatest asset.

For now, there are plenty of other positives about what this next generation are achieving.