How Howard Smith Wharves’ newest restaurant shapes up

It’s the new signature restaurant at the swanky, freshly opened The Fantauzzo Art Series Hotel in Brisbane, but see why our reviewer wasn’t a fan.

Polpetta restaurant at the new Brisbane Art Series Hotel The Fantauzzo. Picture: Supplied

I SAT watching my friend cut her pasta with a spoon, confused as to what she was doing.

Usually she can twirl it with the best of the Italians, but when she handed the plate over for me to try, the source of her dexterity issues became obvious.

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We were at the new Italian restaurant Polpetta, the signature eatery at the swanky, freshly opened Art Series Hotel The Fantauzzo in Brisbane’s buzzing Howard Smith Wharves precinct.

And the pasta in question was the tagliolini (a thinner slightly rounded version of tagliatelle) with prawns, chilli, lemon and bottarga ($33), handmade in-house like all their pastas.

The problem my friend — and now I — faced was the noodles had fused together like a rubber band left in the sun during a Queensland summer.

Rather than a beautiful bowl of silky, olive-oil dressed ribbons, we had a bird’s nest dotted with thumbnail-sized chunks of prawn and flecks of chilli.

The prawn pasta at Polpetta restaurant

The flavour was fine — simple, clean, fresh — but the fact I could have picked up the pasta like a pancake and passed it around the table was just not acceptable.

Unquestionably, if there’s one thing you want to nail at an Italian restaurant, it’s the pasta, especially when it makes up roughly a third of the menu with options such as braised beef ragu on pappardelle and market fish and mussels with orecchiette.

The other two-thirds of the offering is dedicated to antipasti including fava bean, pea and buffalo ricotta bruschetta, calamari fritti, and the restaurant’s namesake polpetta (veal and pork meatballs); as well as secondi like chicken supreme and market fish with cannellini bean and lemon puree.

A starter of cured salmon ($22) featured razor-thin slices of transparent fish swamped by a Floriade-like extravaganza of shaved fennel, cucumber, beetroot, caramelised lemon and bronze fennel, interspersed with dots of creme fraiche.

Fava bean and pea bruschetta at Polpetta restaurant at the new Brisbane Art Series Hotel The Fantauzzo. Picture: Supplied

It certainly appealed visually, but the bold flavours in the botanical shroud simply overpowered the vitreous salmon.

Also overpowering was the maple glaze on the pork main ($34).

A mustard-spiked quenelle of mascarpone crowned the perfectly cooked cutlet, but, unfortunately, neither it nor the fennel and cabbage slaw, as hard as they tried, were quite enough to balance out the overpowering sweetness of the syrup.

The dessert menu sticks to the classics: tiramisu, affogato, chocolate tart and our orange panna cotta with rhubarb ($14).

Again, this was a dish that needed Coco Chanel’s advice of taking one thing off.

The housemade honeycomb, although well done, didn’t need to be there with crunch already coming from pieces of biscotti.

While the floral touches were overkill, with their punchy flavours fighting the deeply citrusy panna cotta.

The kitchen and dining room at Polpetta restaurant at the new Brisbane Art Series Hotel The Fantauzzo. Picture: Supplied

The service was also hit-and-miss.

Our Italian waitress was fantastic, recommending the Monte Tondo soave from the smart, Italian-driven wine list to go with my dishes, which worked perfectly. But other staff members were either slightly rude or just inefficient and absent.

It’s sad because it’s a cool space — though a little noisy — with industrial elements of exposed concrete and airconditioning ducts softened by lush greenery on the walls, hanging from the ceiling and in a garden bed.

It’s also nice to have an Italian option at HSW.

Fingers crossed the issues I experience were teething problems, with the venue less than a month old, and can be ironed out soon.

POLPETTA

Address: 5 Boundary St

Phone: [phone]

Web: polpetta.com.au

Open: Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily

VERDICT

Food: 6.5

Service: 6.5

Ambience: 7.5

Value: 7.5

OVERALL: 7