Osteria Oggi, Adelaide: restaurant review

In a pocket of Adelaide that suddenly became molto Italiano, Oggi — a slick, sexy osteria — serves superb tripe, of all things.

Oggi

Tripe. Of all the offal, it’s the one most likely to offend. And it’s us Baby Boomers at fault. We grew up without knowing the straitened times of our parents; they fed us chops and beef. And we in turn spawned a generation that didn’t need depression muck either. Try feeding tripe to a 21-year-old raised on organic heirloom vegetables and buffalo mozzarella.

So, in just two generations, tripe has all but disappeared from the home kitchen and restaurant menu. Despite the profoundly sound philosophical position that, if an animal is to be killed, we really owe it to the beast to eat every bit.

In a pocket of Adelaide that suddenly became molto Italiano, Oggi — slick, sexy and packed like a can of Italian anchovies — serves … you guessed it. In this cliche-free osteria, run by non-Italians, they don’t smother it with affectation or faux Latin nonsense. It’s “tripe”. I’ve eaten stewed, limp, miserable strips of tripe in Melbourne’s most expensive Italian restaurant; Oggi’s is an object lesson in how to treat the stuff. Large, irregularly sized pieces of honeycomb tripe on a handsome plate with extraordinary spring and bounce, carrying not only their own flavour but that of a slightly emulsified tomato, chilli and oil sauce with fresh mint and finely shaved pecorino. I didn’t see any other plates of the stuff go out (spoiled brats).

Oggi, latest venture for a restaurateur with many potatoes in the fire, is a battle-axe site: long, long slab of a bar that morphs into a dining table, and a sawtooth-roofed back room that provides catacomb-like booths and a pergola-covered “courtyard” with a series of long, communal timber tables. It’s like being in the wedding scene from The Godfather without the guns. Hovering at mezzanine level is a glass-box salumi room and the kitchen. It’s a joyous space reflecting clever design that pays homage to Italy and reflects modern, quirky Australian restaurant style.

Andy Davies, chef behind the owner’s other business (Press), has steered the menu here. That’s a good thing, although the palate sails close to salty, hardly surprising with ingredients such as anchovies, capers, cheeses and salt itself. And there’s a lot of porky stuff. But it makes a serious effort where old standards, done well, might have paid the bills. A glorious version of vitello tonnato, for example, using leaves of poached veal tongue, a creamy tuna mayo, slivers of sweet anchovy and crisp-fried capers, all splashed with olive oil. Like everything here, it’s beyond ballsy. Finesse is the word.

And you’ll see it in house-made pasta that goes way beyond the predictable; tiny squid ink gnocchetti, shining and black, centrepiece for a moat of bisque-like crustacean sauce, are smothered with flash-fried baby squid tentacles, the cooking of each exquisitely timed.

Spaghetti is of equal quality, tight, tasty and presented as a new-wave carbonara with runny, cold-smoked egg yolk at the centre of the nest, slightly bland lardons of speck (rather than the traditional guanciale) and a dusting of pecorino adding to the DIY finishing at table. It’s still very worthy, and pasta of this standard is an impressive feat.

A hands-on maitre d’ (who looks Italian but speaks with a Yorkshire accent) suggests roasted fish of the day from a section called “From the oven”. It’s a fillet of local nannygai, tanned like a swimsuit model, in a delicious broth of mussels and cockles, white wine and garlic, parsley and a hint of chilli mixed up with those shellfish juices. It’s another strong dish with the same immaculate sense of timing fish requires; an optional super-fresh frisbee and witlof salad with a dressing of Cuca anchovies turns the dish to a meal. It’s more than we need; it’s enough to form an opinion.

Oggi is now. It’s an important new restaurant, and not just for Adelaide. And they serve very,

very good tripe.

Address: 76 Pirie Street, Adelaide

Phone: [phone] Web: osteriaoggi.com.au

Hours: Lunch, dinner Mon-Sat

Typical prices: Starters $17; pastas $23; mains $32; desserts $14

Summary: Noisy, fun; food goes much further than you’d expect

Like this? Try … Lucio’s, Sydney; Tipo OO, Melbourne

Stars: 4 out of 5