Restaurant review: Osteria Oggi in Adelaide CBD

As restaurants are closing all around, this Italian just marked ten years since opening. And it’s still attracting the masses.

Delicious 100 2022 SA - Osteria Oggi - Plates from overhead. Picture Duy Dash

This is what success looks like. It’s dinner time on an unremarkable, near-winter school night in a dark and gloomy CBD. But step inside Osteria Oggi and it feels like the last Friday before Christmas. For a start, every place is taken – all the high seats near the door, along the 10m concrete catwalk that runs the length of the room, in the booths and underneath the “pergola” in the main “piazza”. But it’s more the buzz, the excitement, the mood of celebration. If you’re not popping prosecco corks, you’ll at least want to sip a negroni.

Thus, it has been, pandemic aside, for the past 10 years, since an old office space in Pirie St was brilliantly transformed by Simon Kardachi and his team into the kind of contemporary trattoria that’s become the model for others to emulate.

Oggi is in the fortunate position of being front-of-mind to a good chunk of the dining demographic. It has cracked the formula. What is written here, for better or worse, is not going to make a jot of difference.

All of which is running through my head as I sit alone in one of those padded booths waiting for my companions to arrive. Fifteen minutes hoping that someone, anyone, might inquire if I am interested in a drink (absolutely) and maybe handing over a menu. Then, when the rest of the table is seated, it is another 10 minutes before we flag down a passing waiter. As well as making us feel unloved, it ain’t good for the bottom line.

Interior shot at Oggi restaurant, Adelaide. Picture JACK FENBY

Whatever the cause of this breakdown, it is most un-Oggi-like (to be fair, things improve markedly). The quality of service here has always been the secret sauce. Effortless, fun-loving but ultra-professional, quite often topped off with an Italian accent.

That sort of mindset also guides those in the kitchen who ply their trade on an elevated platform above the dining room like actors on a stage. As envisioned by founding chef Andrew Davies, and now rendered by a team led by Mimi Rivers and Casey Mallett-Outtrim, Oggi takes guidance from Italian tradition but infuses it with a generous Aussie spirit. Exhibit one is the pasta that is handmade daily in-house but sauced with the kind of abundance that makes purists frown but customers happy.

Local ingredients, particularly seafood, are given their dues. Port Lincoln squid, the hoods like little bonnets, are flashed over a wood-fired grill and finished with a dressing of salty, spicy nduja sausage – the perfect team player.

If historians were to trace back the advent of Adelaide’s obsession with anchovy soldiers, Oggi would have to figure prominently. A version of the snack has been a drawcard since day one and the current incarnation features an Olasagasti fillet draped along a wiggly piping of buffalo curd blended with roast capsicum puree.

The dining room is a two-tonne delight. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

There daily specials list is ever-changing featuring a mix of pasta. Picture: Josie Withers

Spaghetti carbonara has been a hit since the start. So has the reginette that is the reassuring dish you’d hope would be pulled from the oven at nonna’s – squidgy braised eggplant, rich sugo, melted fior di latte and, best of all, crisped edges on the rippled noodle.

Duck pappardelle comes with a sauce of braised leg meat, red wine and dried porcini finished with a handful or two of butter-fried hazelnuts scattered across the top. The rabbit ragu follows a similar pattern, this time with pistachios and ridged tubes of maccheroni. Personally I prefer this short pasta to the ribbons that are a few seconds beyond al dente.

For dessert, the tiramisu affogato is another long-term favourite, the tower of marscapone sabayon and choc ganache capped by a cocoa-dusted praline tuille and lowered into a puddle of coffee anglaise. Definitely one to share.

Ten years on, Oggi seems as popular as ever, one restaurant that is thriving. Yes, you could get away with $50 for a plate of that reginette and a glass of vino. But, looking around, most people are sipping $25 cocktails and opening bottles from a list with few options less than $79. That mood of celebration must be contagious.

76 Pirie St, city

8359 2525

osteriaoggi.com.au

Main courses

$32-$52

Open

Lunch, dinner daily

Must try

Grilled squid with nduja; oven-baked reginette

Verdict

Food 15/20

Ambience 17.5/20

Service 14/20

Value 14/20

Overall 15/20

As a guide, scores indicate:

1-9 Fail; 10-11 Satisfactory;
12-14 Recommended; 15-16 Very Good; 17-18 Outstanding;
19-20 World Class

delicious.com.au/eatout