One of Qld’s best pizza and pasta restaurants expands

One of Brisbane’s most celebrated Italian restaurants is set to open its highly anticipated expansion this week, offering a bold food and drinks menu sure to whet appetites.

It was listed in the top five in Queensland for both pizza and pasta in the recent delicious. 100 Best of the Best Eats and Treats, now Ramona Trattoria in Brisbane’s Coorparoo is expanding.

The hugely popular neighbourhood Italian has taken over the tenancy next door and will this week launch sister venue Bar Rocco.

The dining space at Bar Rocco in Coorparoo.

Acting as an expansion of sorts to Ramona, but also a venue in its own right, Bar Rocco will sit somewhere between a wine bar and an osteria, boasting a diverse Italian share-style menu, with a custom-built wood coal grill as the centrepiece of the kitchen.

That means 24 dishes running from oysters, olives and focaccia to stuffed zucchini flowers, skewers and steak. The restaurant will also make its own pork sausages with the Italian cheese provolone, sun-dried tomatoes, fennel and parsley; as well as mini versions of the acclaimed pizza next door known as pizzetta.

“It’s more approachable dining for people,” said chef/owner Ashley-Maree Kent.

“They can choose whether they want to spend $20 per head or $90 per head – it’s in their hands.”

Matching the food will be a strong, Italian-leaning, 52-bottle wine list, with plenty of out-of-the-ordinary varietals to try, as well as more familiar drops from Australia, France and Austria.

The dining space at Bar Rocco in Coorparoo.

Meanwhile, the cocktail list will also be a significant advancement from Ramona, with a broad variety of signature shake-ups on offer that provide fun twists on classics, such as a panettone-infused negroni and a manhattan made with a red wine reduction using vino left over from the restaurants.

“We’re really stepping up our cocktails and also offering a basic spritz menu with lots of different varieties,” said Kent.

The fit-out, which previously housed Spanish eatery Paella y Pa’mi, has also undergone a significant transformation to make it the open and approachable Bar Rocco, with burgundy, sage green and ivory tones throughout and a mix of bar and low table seating for up to 30, giving diners the option of coming in simply for a few snacks and a drink, or staying for a whole meal.

“We want it to be a neighbourhood osteria and you don’t have to travel to the city to have great standards,” Kent said.

Recognising that the week before Christmas is perhaps not the ideal time to open a restaurant, Kent has come up with the unique idea to run a three-day soft launch with a $65 per person set menu including bottomless wine for 90 minutes. The menu will offer mini tastes of almost all the dishes on the new menu, allowing patrons a sneak peek of what is to come. The $65 deal will run this Thursday, Friday and Saturday and give Kent and her team the chance to identify any hiccups, before they close on Christmas Eve and then reopen again on January 3 for the official launch.

“It will also be a thank you to the community that have been so very supportive,” she said., as well as patient, with the venue’s launch postponed three months because of delays with liquor licensing.

Originally published as One of Qld’s best pizza and pasta restaurants expands