Feel like gnocchi? It’s the only thing on the menu at this Adelaide restaurant
Love gnocchi? Then you’ve got to go here. It’s the only thing on the evening menu at this Hyde Park restaurant.
Food & Wine
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Stashed away in the bottom drawer of my kitchen, alongside other rarely used bits and pieces, there is a stainless-steel gizmo that looks like a garlic press from Land of the Giants.
Properly known as a potato ricer, this piece of apparatus was bought specifically to pulverise spuds for making gnocchi – a process that’s a bit of fun on a rainy afternoon but not something you want to do every day.
I have some sympathy then for the appropriately named Frank Nardinocchi, the bloke who makes the mountains of fresh gnocchi consumed each dinner service at Artusi by Night.
From our table we watch him working at the counter beside the kitchen, handling baked potatoes like hot rocks, scooping steaming pulp from the jackets, forcing it through a sieve, binding it with a little flour and egg, rolling it out into long, skinny sausages, chopping off little lozenges of dough, filling tray upon tray.
These little dumplings don’t just feature in a plate or two at the Hyde Park eatery that opened earlier this year. Other than a few introductory snacks, it is all they sell. Gnocchi or nothing. Carb-cutters turn the page now.
However, as the name Artusi by Night suggests, this is a venue with a split personality. The culinary single-mindedness only kicks in after dark.
Each day it opens as Hello Neighbour, a cheery café operated by the same owners with a menu that has so many choices it will make your head spin: Baked eggs or avocado on black ciabatta… smoothie bowls or salads… tomato tart, salmon tacos or triple cheese toastie.
The fit-out feels as if it has this daytime crowd more in mind. Pale spearmint walls are broken up by stone columns that have been painted over white. Potted greenery hangs overhead. Seating is a mix of banquettes and upholstered chairs and stools with brass framework. It could be a flash gelateria or garden centre café.
By the evening the mood is more mischievous. Seventies singalongs – Danger Zone, Rocket Man – are on the playlist and wait staff are up for some fun.
To start, a small selection of “piatti” includes olives, pickles and salumi with a ball of burrata (mozzarella-style cheese) that oozes its soft centre when pierced with a knife. Halved witlof are braised until the leaves become translucent, then grilled with a sprinkling of grated pecorino. Rings of top-grade local calamari are fried in a coating with plenty of crunch, plenty of season and plenty of knobbly bits. Everything is snack-sized, which is wise given what lies ahead.
The dozen gnocchi dishes range from the simplicity of a beef cheek ragu or napolitana and burrata to more elaborate combinations such as radicchio, pea, basil cream and prosciutto. All bar one are potato based.
The exception are little pillows of pumpkin, light as a feather and barely clinging together, the sweet inclinations of the veg balanced in classic style with a nutbrown butter, fried sage leaves and a squeeze of lemon. The gnocchi are the star of the show and deservedly so.
At other times they play second fiddle, perhaps with a no-holds-barred bowlful of mushroom ragu featuring plump chunks of Swiss brown, portobello and dried porcini. Garlic, chopped sage and a dash of cream bring this festival of fungi together and the gnocchi comes along for the ride.
It’s a similar story with a seafood medley of spectacular tommy ruff fillets, prawns, mussels and pipis touched with a powerful bisque sauce. A few drips of squid ink have turned the gnocchi black. Less convincing is a version featuring pork and fennel sausage, shredded kale and clunky quarters of tomato that feel a bit of an afterthought.
Servings are mammoth and people at other tables scoop their leftovers into plastic containers. Light eaters might want to share one gnocchi with a side or two.
Still, it’s hard to say “no” when dessert is a tarte-tatin-inspired pastry case holding a honey-roasted pear scattered with a nut crumble and surrounded by a pool of crème anglaise that might have been better in a jug to the side. Marignally more circumspect are quenelles of chocolate mousse that only just register as sweet partnered by orange curd, hazelnut praline and crumbled honeycomb.
But it’s the gnocchi that are putting bums on seats and using up more than 30kg of spuds every night. At a time when many eateries are trying to have something for everyone, it is refreshing to see Artusi nail its colours to the mast and concentrate on doing one thing so well. I might just be dragging the ricer from the kitchen drawer again.
ARTUSI BY NIGHT
150 King William Rd, Hyde Park
7089 5557; helloartusi.com.au
OWNERS Fillippo Ludovici, Laura Edmunds, Alisha Myers, Annie Jiang
CHEFS Francesco Nardinocchi
FOOD Italian
SMALL $8-$23
MAIN $23-$32
DESSERT $12-$14
DRINKS Cocktails a specialty. Wine list based on single local producer (Hentley Farm currently) changing every two months.
OPEN DINNER Wed-Sat