Italian with a twist: Steak in white chocolate
These first-time restaurateurs who’ve opened in a newly renovated historic building in Fortitude Valley are not bothering to play it safe.
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Steak aged in white chocolate? Rabbit ragu pasta topped with a light dusting of ground coffee? Cheesecake with rosemary ice-cream and miso sable crumble?
The first-time restaurateurs who’ve opened in a newly renovated historic building in Fortitude Valley during the depths of a pandemic are not bothering to play it safe.
Bring it on, the menu shouts! And the drinks side of the operation is equally attention grabbing. There’s a multi-page, bound cocktail and spirits menu (four versions of negroni kick off proceedings) and a lengthy global wine list that displays a particular interest in Italy and specifically, Sicily.
Rosmarino owners Lauren Smith and Milan Michelin-trained sommelier Andrea Gatti, who most recently were working at Hellenika in James St, have teamed up with Italian chef Dario Manca (ex-Za Za Ta, Fortitude Valley) for the enterprise.
The restaurant, with a wine bar at the front of a long, narrow dining room that opens to a small courtyard, is part of a heritage building that opened as clothing manufacturer Stewart & Hemmant in 1898, and has now undergone an extreme makeover from its various iterations including a stint as the Great Wall Shopping Centre.
Original brick walls team with polished concrete floors, wooden tables, framed European maps and dangling lights to create a darkly elegant space on the McLachlan St side of the retail and office complex.
Beef tartare and kingfish crudo with burnt buttermilk are among the antipasti options but we move on to Manca’s signature culurgiones ($25), artfully pleated traditional Sardinian pasta pockets stuffed with a soft, smooth filling of potato.
They’re a treat but even more memorable is a bowl of house-made short pasta twists bathed in a rabbit ragu ($27), with shallot, goat curd, lemon thyme and white wine and a crowning sprinkle of coffee adding a final complementary touch in the flavour arsenal.
The menu lays out the time involved in the main courses: rolled lamb belly cooked for 24 hours; seven-day aged duck and the beef ($54), in this case, tri-tip with a 9-plus marbling score, ages for up to seven days in white chocolate.
The resulting slices of meat are soft and meltingly delicious, with a slight caramel note but there’s no particularly obvious chocolate presence.
Showcased simply with a small pond of garlic and anchovy-heavy bagna cauda sauce, a hillock of finely diced rockmelon and red wine jus, it’s pretty amazing.
No vegetables are included but a side of thrice-cooked potatoes ($12) proves a winner, the spuds flaunting a crispy exterior with almost impossibly fluffy insides.
Something of a letdown in comparison is the restrained flavour of the cured and smoked rainbow trout ($39) paddling in a brothy acqua pazza sauce in a smallish bowl with a wide brim.
Desserts are similarly contrasting, with macinamisu ($18), a version of tiramisu using shortcrust biscuits rather than savoiardi, featuring a rather overwhelming ratio of coffee pastry cream, mascarpone and zabaione.
Another dessert stars a pear perfectly poached in chenin blanc with a sheep milk yoghurt and white chocolate ganache and excellently tangy vanilla fior di latte ice-cream ($18), although the cookie dough crumble is almost a step too far. A selection of nine types of cheese is also on offer.
The wine bar at the front operates simultaneously for walk-ins, with a menu of salumi, 20 cheeses, snacks such as chickpea waffles, toasted sandwiches and several types of house-made bread, which curiously is also on the restaurant’s degustation menus but not offered to a la carte diners.
That seems a crying shame given the fat, crusty sourdough loaves I could see being shovelled out of the oven.
Service is attentive and the final winning ingredient in a dinner where culinary quirkiness has nothing to do with seeking attention and is all about delivering sheer deliciousness on
a plate.
Rosmarino
Food 4 stars
Ambience 3.5
Service 4
Value 3.5
Overall 4 stars
Must try
Pasta twists with rabbit ragu
6 McLachlan St, Fortitude Valley
No phone
rosmarino.com.au
Lunch Fri to Sun 12pm–2.30pm, Dinner Wed-Sun 5.30pm–9.30pm. Wine bar: Wed-Thur
5-10.30pm, Fri-Sun until 11pm
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