Italian restaurant Bianca attracts Brisbane’s “it” crowd

A top-notch wine list, clever cocktails, hearty fare and an electric ambience are driving Brisbane’s movers and shakers and serious foodies to this sexy new eatery.

The up-tempo beats of house music pulse throughout the moodily lit, salmon-hued space as animated diners quaff bottles of Italian reds and foam-topped cocktails.

Warm, chatty staff dart through crowded tables, explaining dishes and taking orders while chefs load bread into a roaring wood-fired oven at the back of the casual, yet slick, restaurant.

We sit at the central bar, tiled in shades of pinky-brown, watching executive chef Ben Williamson and his team shave slices of mortadella and prosciutto di San Daniele and meticulously plate antipasti like pickled sardines, buffalo mozzarella and blood orange with radicchio and ricotta.

The antipasti bar on the left at slick new Bianca Italian restaurant in Fortitude Valley.

We’re at the just-opened Italian restaurant Bianca, in Fortitude Valley – the latest venue from the team behind hit Brisbane eateries Agnes, Honto and Same Same – and the place is pumping. There’s an almost palpable energy in the air. It’s no doubt helped by it being the shiny new kid on The Calile Hotel precinct block, with staff eager to put their best foot forward and a cast of “it crowd” diners keen to check out the hottest opening; but this vitality is something that has almost become synonymous with this restaurant group – especially at neighbouring Same Same.

The sexy salmon-hued dining room at Bianca.

And it’s a vigour that makes for a dining experience which is equal parts laid-back and a whole lot of fun.

Co-owner Bianca Marchi, for whom the restaurant is named, recommends we start with one of the four breads on offer and a couple of antipasti.

The pizza fritta ($6) is her pick – puffy, triangles of fried dough, their surface glistening with bubbles, ready to be pulled apart and stuffed with runny La Stella burrata ($18) and meltingly soft mortadella ($14) made just for the restaurant in collaboration with Brisbane charcuterie king Damon Porter.

It’s perfect bar snack food, and also the type of thing I’d love to sit down to for lunch most days – if my waistline would allow it.

A spread of pasta dishes at Bianca restaurant in Fortitude Valley.

There are fried dishes such as sardines and calamari, a grill section with prawns and pipis, plus a wealth of pastas including a cheese-laden lasagne and a ricotta and fermented pumpkin agnolotti. The pappardelle lamb ragu ($32) tastes like it’s straight from nonna’s kitchen thanks to hearty chunks of carrot and nuggets of lamb twirled between al dente ribbons of pasta in a thickened meat gravy.

Crumbed chicken and a 1.2kg T-bone steak prepared as a traditional bistecca alla Fiorentina line up as mains, but it’s the porchetta ($46) that steals the show.

Two whopping slices of meat (best shared) hit the table – juicy with fat, stuffed with chilli-laced herbs and ringed with golden, aerated crackling that’s seriously outstanding. It’s well matched to a side of fiercely charry broccolini ($16) and a glass of the versatile, medium-bodied Marco Crivelli Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato from the cleverly curated, all-encompassing wine list. Italian in either provenance or variety, it runs from a $59 bottle of prosecco to a Barolo that will set you back a hefty $95 for a single glass.

Lemon sorbet served inside a lemon at Bianca.

The drinks are made that much better by serving them on adorable, tongue-in-cheek coasters designed by the restaurant’s staff featuring little foodie cartoon characters like Al Porcini and Marcello Macaroni.

A soft serve ice cream machine sitting behind the antipasti station has been tempting us all night, with staff filling the restaurant’s bombolini with either pistachio or fior di latte gelato. It’s our waitress’s recommendation for dessert, but the porchetta has tipped us into pant-splitting territory, with a lemon sorbet ($8) the most I can handle; while my guest bites into a chocolate, hazelnut cannoli ($7 each). The latter’s shell shatters like a Violet Crumble in the mouth – thin and crisp with a rich, satiny filling; while the sorbet arrives playfully stuffed into a hollowed out lemon and face-scrunchingly sour – perfect to cleanse the palate.

Chocolate and hazelnut cannoli.

Bianca – just like its namesake – is a restaurant overflowing with character and charm, and even when the shine of newness begins to fade, its beauty and charisma is sure to keep customers returning.

BIANCA

Shop Am5 Ada Lane, 46 James Street, Fortitude Valley

3063 7679

biancarestaurant.com.au

Open Mon-Thu dinner, Fri-Sun lunch and dinner

Must eat dish

Porchetta

VERDICT – SCORES OUT OF 5

Food 4

Ambience 4.5

Service 4

Value 3.5

Overall 4