SA Weekend food review: Casa Carboni at Angaston
An unassuming eatery in the Barossa has received one of highest scores reviewer Simon Wilkinson has dished out this year.
SA Weekend
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In a charming little town on the fringes of a famous winemaking region, a well-travelled chef and his wife serve lunch to a handful of guests that is everything Italian cooking should be.
The pasta is perfect, the risotto a revelation, the vegetables plucked from a nearby farm. Bread is offered with every course and the wine carefully chosen.
If this lunch was stumbled upon during a holiday in Europe, it would be the travellers’ tale I’d be boring everyone with when I got home but, in 2020 of course, that’s not the case.
Casa Carboni is not in Tuscany or Umbria, but the Barossa Valley. Wedged between a sprawling hotel and a celebrated local cheesemaker in the main street of Angaston, the little shop run by chef Matteo Carboni and his wife Fiona could easily be missed when walking by were it not for a jolly striped awning.
The couple, who lived in Parma, northern Italy, before moving to South Australia, have established a business that has evolved into many parts since they first opened the doors in 2012.
Shelves along either side display hard-to-find imported pantry items and beverages for sale.
To the left, an espresso machine sits on a counter that is loaded in the morning with the cannoli and other pastries an Italian would call breakfast.
A raised kitchen at the back is used for cooking classes that were the original focus, as well as for feeding the fortunate few who have a place at the tables spread across the remaining space.
Casa Carboni isn’t strictly a restaurant, at least in the traditional sense.
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 or over-hyped buzz.
Wine is mostly imported from Italy and France, with a couple of options opened to sell by the glass but a much bigger bottle list for those who want to delve deeper.
The format won’t appeal to picky eaters or control freaks but our lunch is the way I’d choose to dine out nine times out of 10.
Each part is crafted in the same unassuming but beautiful fashion as the specially commissioned glazed plates on which they are served. It’s a true reflection of these people and their place.
A trio of small entrees are brought to the table as separate courses, and deservedly so.
A butcher’s backroom snack of fried mortadella is elevated by a vivid green splash of mustard leaf oil that has just enough pep to hold its own, as well as the thin slice of sourdough underneath.
Heftier wedges of the bread are supplied to mop up each subsequent plate and, if I’ve come across a more irresistible loaf in the past few years, I can’t recall it.
Spears of asparagus, from a property “just down the road”, are packed with grassy, sweet flavour that is enhanced by a drizzle of anchovy oil and flurry of La Dame aged goat’s cheese from the Barossa Valley Cheese Company next door. The ultimate in local and seasonal? Absolutely.
Chunks of pan-fried Spencer Gulf prawn are plopped on to a thick puree of chickpeas in a combination inspired by Tuscany’s penchant for seafood with pulses. So simple on the surface, the quality of the prawn turns it into something special.
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. None of this, however, distracts from the rice (grown in the Verona region of Italy) that is as firm and reassuring as a confident handshake.
The pasta course is equally restrained.
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, tossed through more butter and cheese, as well as a spoonful of the meaty juices.
For dessert, Matteo turns to his mum’s recipe of house-made amoretti 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 bittersweet orange syrup on top. Once again, it is stunning. If the praise sounds a little overboard, I have support.
Hundreds of tributes are scrawled in black marker on the Casa Carboni wall, long and short, some in different languages, others with drawings, all carrying a similar message to this review. “Thank you Matteo and Fiona, for your food and hospitality. You have made my day.”
CASA CARBONI
67 Murray St, Angaston
0415 157 669; casacarboni.com.au
OWNERS Matteo and Fiona Carboni
CHEF Matteo Carboni
FOOD Italian
THREE COURSES $55. FOUR COURSES $65.
PASTA $27 (Check website for details).
DRINKS Comprehensive list of Italian
and French imports.
OPEN BREAKFAST and LUNCH Thu-Sun; DINNER Fri
IF YOU LIKE THIS … Nido, Hyde Park; Vigna Bottin, Willunga
SCORE: 16/20
