SA Weekend restaurant review: Carmelo’s Cucina

The old Trak cinema’s gone – instead, this Italian eatery, with its perfect Port Lincoln mussels and ideal ragu has the potential to hit new heights, writes Simon Wilkinson.

Carmelo's Cucina, Toorak Gardens

Dreams pay no heed to geography. Imagination isn’t limited by lines on the map. Distances and differences might seem exaggerated right now but here’s a story to put the world back in perspective.

A few years ago Charbel (Charlie) Mansour was sitting on a rooftop in Canada with his Italian mate. They were talking about their hopes for the future and Charbel, a chef for 20 years, said he wanted to run his own restaurant.

“You must call it Carmelo’s,” the friend declared.

Charbel, which is Lebanese, ­becomes Charlie in English and then Carmelo in Italian. Three names from across the globe, all one and the same.

In March this year, that rooftop dream became reality when Carmelo’s Cucina opened at the front of a building on the corner of Greenhill and Portrush roads that was once home to the Trak cinema.

The struggles of the cinema helped trigger a disastrous run in the restaurant space, with long-time tenant Grimaldi’s closing, followed in quick succession by La Caldera (Argentinian) and then Hellenik Kitchen (Greek).

Supplied Editorial Mussels, garlic and chilli at Carmelo's Cucina, Toorak Gardens

Now it is back to Italian and the new owner has updated the interior, painting walls white, adding fluted panelling, potted greenery and splashes of blue. The feel is light and relaxed. More Amalfi coast than anywhere inland.

Following that lead, seafood is a significant component of a menu that does its ­utmost to please all comers. Pastas, a few pizzas and other mains are all there, with just enough departures from the tried-and-true Aus-Italian formula to indicate someone has given the combinations more than a passing thought.

In fact, the cooking is a significant step up from most of the franchise-style casual cafes that charge at least the same amount and often seem to attract a crowd of which they are less than deserving.

Take the “cozze aglio ollo”. A bowl load of black mussels, small and sweet after an upbringing in the waters off Port Lincoln, are steamed open and then tossed through a broth spiked with garlic and chilli.

Papadelle ragu at Carmelo's Cucina.

What sets this version apart is that the broth has been made from scratch, using bones left from the barramundi that is fish of the day. With a little of the salt from the mussel ­liqueur, it is a wonderful, deeply flavoured elixir, as good as most soups, and when the grilled bread runs out (hint, hint), we use the discarded shells to slurp from. I can’t think of many better things to do with $17.

The squid, by contrast, shows the pitfalls of less-than-ideal produce. It is Australian, but not the local southern calamari, and the thick curls of tube, while competently fried, are bland and flabby. A wedge of lemon, tarragon mayonnaise and salad of rocket and pear do their best to help.

Arancini balls are the size of mandarins, filled with a mixture of pumpkin, goat’s cheese and very little of the risotto rice that is usually the main ingredient. Agno­lotti pasta are shaped like mini flying saucers, the swollen dome in the middle filled with a mix of finely ground (wild?) mushroom and a touch of marscapone. Crash-landed in a puddle of brown butter, with fried sage leaves and enoki, they would benefit from a minute more cooking to take the chew from the thicker rim.

Tiramisu from Carmelo's Cucina.

The fortunes of a restaurant like this can live and die on the quality of its ragu and Carmelo’s slowly cooked short-rib concoction, rolled through ribbons of pappar­delle, is up with the best. A hefty pork ribeye looks like a butcher shop pin-up, all charred and crusty on the surface, from the tip of its bone handle to the thin strip of fat opposite.

The flavour of the meat, perhaps, doesn’t quite live up to this initial ­impression but a fabulous boots-and-all stew of white beans and cacciatore (sausage) underneath more than compensates.

For dessert, tiramisu is rendered as an upright cylinder of coffee-soaked biscuits and frothy whipped marscapone that makes it one of the lighter versions I have tried.

The corridor next to Carmelo’s leads to the space that was previously the cinema. Now, it is occupied by one of the 12,000 or so fitness centres that have opened around town in the past two years. As we devour the last of the oozy innards of a chocolate and orange fondant, we watch several sweaty figures head out to the fresh air. People are happy to watch movies at home, it seems, but want company when they exercise. Perhaps the world is different after all.