Italian experts open new Noosa restaurant
Does Noosa need another Italian restaurant? This fancy new offering operated by owners boasting a strong food pedigree has taken the risk. We check it out.
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Could Noosa possibly need another Italian restaurant I wondered as we navigated our way around surely what must be the world’s highest concentration of roundabouts to the Noosa Marina. Even this restaurant and boating hub, protruding from the riverbank at Tewantin a few kilometres back from the heady delights of Hastings St, already has one with the rather workmanlike moniker of Noosa Italian Restaurant and Pizza.
Nevertheless, Lucio’s Marina opened its doors in early December, the work of owners boasting a strong food pedigree. Matteo Galletto, whose grandparents opened a still-operating seafood restaurant in northern Italy’s Liguria in the 1950s and whose father started Lucio’s in Sydney’s Paddington almost 40 years ago and ran it until it closed early last year, is working the operation with his wife Dieuwke and sister Michela.
The decor with its caulked wooden floorboards, white tablecloths, blue and white furnishings and a small selection of the artworks that covered the walls of the Sydney operation, is fresh and appealing, but the main focus is the views across the Noosa River.
A roomy bar at one end offers happy hour from 4pm-5.30pm with drops including a $5 prosecco and a clipped bar food list, while the main dining area is expansive with a good amount of room between tables.
Chef Alejandro Soto, most recently head chef at frenetic, casual, pan-Asian Maroochydore success story Giddy Geisha, is revisiting his previous Italian cooking experience. The menu starts light with snacks such as oysters or ciabatta with tomato butter; antipasto in the form of octopus carpaccio or maybe pickled black lip mussels and moves on to pastas such as taglioni with Fraser Island spanner crab or ravioli of Moreton Bay bug with foie gras and saffron and larger share plates: fish, prawns, XL octopus hands or two types of steak.
Cured swordfish loin ($26) is an interesting starter, the delicate, paper-thin slices spread over a plate and are teamed with a small dish of pickled green tomato that overwhelmed the fish when used in tandem on pieces of crisp pane carasau, a thin Sardinian flatbread. It’s a pleasant enough summery dish but the fish is very subtley flavoured.
Fritto misto ($25) of calamari, school prawns and whitebait is a solid version of the favourite seaside dish, with bergamot aioli adding a creamy flourish. Spaghetti tossed with sea urchin cream and topped with a hillock of finely crumbed pangrattato and flavour bursts of salmon roe ($35) is appealing without being a standout but the fish of the day, blue eye trevalla ($45), nicely cooked with skin on and enhanced by a bed of rich tomatoey minestrone of fregola, braised fennel and prosciutto pangrattato is on the money.
Dessert is limited to lemon myrtle panna cotta with summer fruit or very moist three-milk cake topped with piped Italian meringue and a clump of delicious morello cherries ($19), an excellent combination.
Wait staff vary from the very experienced to seemingly those relatively new to the trade, but there are plenty of them and as the room fills to capacity on a Friday night, they appear to handle it. Courses are well-timed and drinks are delivered promptly from a list that includes local Heads of Noosa Japanese lager and Sunshine and Sons gin, spritzes, four types of negroni and a 200-bottle wine list that includes classic Italian varieties on its global list.
Being a marina, diners can arrive by ferry, which adds a certain flourish to the experience of trying the latest offering on the Noosa River, adding another touch of la dolce vita to the bustling tourist hub.
LUCIO’S MARINA
2 Parkyn Court, Tewantin
5470 2332
luciosmarina.com
Open
Wed-Thur dinner,
Fri-Sat lunch and dinner, Sun lunch
Must try
Fish of the day
VERDICT
Food
Ambience
Service
Value
Overall
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