Brisbane Italian restaurants: Il Gancio review, Toombul Shopping Centre
This slick new eatery in Toombul’s “dining playground” isn’t breaking new ground for Italian cooking, but it is helping raise the bar for shopping centre dining, writes reviewer Fiona Donnelly.
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There’s a pavement water feature that changes colour as it spurts skywards, an out-sized swing set framed in hot pink neon, and a circus themed arcade-style bar for adults.
And that’s just for starters. We’re at Upstairs in Toombul Shopping Centre visiting the new “dining playground” that owners Mirvac unveiled in November.
Front and centre sits Il Gancio, a casual but sophisticated looking Italian eatery by old hands Dom Barakat and Ibrahim Haddad.
Il Gancio, “The Hook” in Italian, is one of about 10 dine-in options at the new food precinct, a line up which includes Max Brenner, Niku Ramen and Hello Harry.
It’s a sibling for Barakat and Haddad’s Il Verde restaurant on Bowen Hill’s King St and Il Vento at The Wharf, Mooloolaba. And there’s more than a passing family resemblance.
Like its forerunners, Il Gancio’s menu follows a classic format, featuring hits a plenty from the Boot.
Here, the roundup includes 10 wood-fired pizzas, antipasti, primi and secondi options, as well as several salads and a kids’ menu with options like a gnocchi bolognaise ($11) and spaghetti carbonara ($11).
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Pizza margherita ($16) is a reliable benchmark – and the base of this one is a beauty. It’s fat and puffy around the rim, the tanned dough freckled and slightly blistered by the intense heat.
The sauce just misses the burst of bright acidity needed to kick everything up a level, but it’s a solid Neapolitan-style pizza, especially for the price.
A tempting collection of wines by-the-glass features organic Italian options like a When We Dance Chianti ($13) from Il Palagio, the ritzy Tuscan estate owned by popstar Sting.
Both Peroni Nastro Azzurro ($9) and a house lager ($8) are on tap, and a separate premium wine offering is also in the mix.
Cheese croquettes with Il Gancio sauce ($13) arrive plated up as three mini zeppelins.
Their crumbed outers are bronzed and crisp, scattered with salt flakes.
Each croquette is crammed with a mac and cheese filling, an oozy mix of provolone, ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella thickly coating the short pasta tubes.
A bed of rocket adds pep, while the small ramekin of Napoli sauce helps balance richness.
A serve of salt and pepper baby calamari ($17) also hits the mark.
The tender seafood arrives in a small stack, coated in a delicate golden batter of well-seasoned rice flour.
A basil-flecked aioli, jazzed up with pesto, works well with the seafood.
As you’d expect, there’s a variety of pasta options up for grabs. Sicilian caserecce twists come with house-made sausage, pancetta and a taleggio sauce ($25), while pappardelle scores with truffle and mushroom ($27).
Seafood linguine ($29) lands with just a hint of Napoli sauce, the pasta cooked al dente.
The strands are tangled around a decent haul of seafood – crunchy prawns, a few shell-on mussels and baby calamari. An accompanying chunk of lemon adds zing.
We’d probably return for the Wednesdays-only “cheese wheel” deal ($35pp).
This includes a glass of wine or beer, a croquette and a bowl of pasta coated in parmesan from the wheel.
Service this evening, though, is rather hit and miss, but more experienced servers manage to cover the gaps. When the bill includes the next-door table’s pinot grigio and a soft drink we hadn’t ordered, the error is quickly corrected.
Il Gancio isn’t breaking new ground for Italian cooking, but it is helping raise the bar for shopping centre dining.
Italian standards are cooked with care and priced sensibly.
And that’s something with mass appeal, particularly for a mass market.
SCORES OUT OF 10
Food: 7
Drinks: 7
Vibe: 7
Service: 7
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