Rome’s greatest food fuels fun, new late-night Italian restaurant
An upmarket, late-night Valley Italian restaurant is a major move for its owners, who already boast popular eateries across Brisbane and interstate. It’s fun vibes and extensive menu, that pays homage to Rome’s greatest culinary hits, makes it a must try.
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Rome has the Colosseum and the Forum, Fortitude Valley has the Fortitude Music Hall and the Pig N’ Whistle.
But what they have in common is access to the Italian capital’s greatest culinary hits.
Eterna Dining, an ode to the food of the Eternal City, has opened in the Ann Street premises formerly inhabited by super-popular pan-Asian restaurant Longtime, which migrated across the inner-Brisbane suburb to slick James St late last year and reopened as Same Same.
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Undeterred by the pandemic, owners of the Italian gastronomy empire Salt Meats Cheese, Stefano de Blasi and Edoardo Perlo, who have multiple restaurants in NSW and Queensland including those at Haven Newstead, South Bank and Surfers Paradise, have ventured into a more upscale operation here.
Eterna is also, unusually, a late-night venue, although we’re there straight after work, which is hardly checking out operations in the dim recesses of the evening.
A jazz band was arriving as we left. Even so, there was a good crowd in.
The dangling plants and adornments of the previous tenants are nowhere to be seen, rather the room is a stripped back, low-lit cocoon fronting the open kitchen, where Francesco Vitagliano, most recently the ex-head chef of Newstead’s Salt Meats Cheese, plys his trade.
We nestle in amid a cluster of couples perched along a comfy banquette like birds on a wire and delve into the extensive menu that ranges from Roman street fare items (suppli, rice croquettes with mozzarella heart that are not to be confused with arancini, fava beans with shaved pecorino Romano cheese, and meatballs in amatriciana sauce) to antipasti and share plates, pasta including the “eternal three” (carbonara, cacio e pepe and bucatini all’amatriciana) plus five main courses.
Staff are ready to offer advice but not overly intrusive, their smiling familiarity adding to the atmosphere conjured by a pumping playlist that spans everything from Ian Dury to Parquet Courts’ droll version of These Boots are Made for Walkin’.
Also mood enhancing is the substantial wine list with a strong Italian presence that covers the gamut from my $15 a glass pinto grigio to a $350 barolo.
Grilled octopus ($26) is straightforward, two blackened tentacles curling around a splodge of chickpea puree while our other starter has been given a good seeing-to by the deep-fryer, the distinctly Roman ingredients of salt cod and artichoke ($19) are encased in a crisp, almost rigid batter with a hint of paprika and served with herb mayo.
Porchetta, roasted pork belly roll, seasoned with garlic and rosemary ($30) is the business; the flesh moist, the crackling cracking and the dish of the night although it has stiff competition from the cacio e pepe ($26).
One of Rome’s signature dishes, this riot of tonnarello, egg pasta that resembles square spaghetti, tossed with pecorino Romano cheese and flecked with black pepper ($26), is a triumph of simplicity that could easily feel like a carb nightmare but doesn’t.
Desserts run to a ricotta and cherry cheesecake, vanilla and berry semifreddo and tiramisu ($14), which proves, in one paver-sized, feather-light, very appealing serving, why people keep ordering something that so often devolves into the equivalent of sucking coffee out of a kitchen sponge.
Eterna is a welcome, feel-good antidote to a challenging year. And if serious comfort food isn’t enough to pep you up, perhaps opt for the penicillin cocktail, involving whisky, lemon, ginger and honey, possibly best prescribed with accompanying Thursday night jazz.
ETERNA DINING
THE VERDICT
Food 3.5 stars
Ambinece 3.5 stars
Service 4 stars
Value 3.5
Overall 3.5 stars
Must try
Porchetta di Ariccia
610 Ann St,
Fortitude Valley
Open Tue-Thur 5pm-midnight, Fri – Sat
5pm-1am