TasWeekend Indulge: Deliciously deft at Fico Bistro and Vino

AFTER a search across two continents and a lot of hard work, Federica Andrisani and Oskar Rossi opened Fico Bistro and Vino five days before Christmas.

A long timber bar welcomes diners to Fico Bistro and Vino. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

AFTER a search across two continents and a lot of hard work, Federica Andrisani and Oskar Rossi opened Fico Bistro and Vino five days before Christmas.

They have transformed a dingy takeaway and newsagency into a wonderfully airy space with the white-on-white decor brightened by large vases of flowers and decorated with artworks and murals by Tom Samek, Rossi’s father.

There’s a semi-open kitchen, a beautiful long timber bar with stools, well-spaced tables, modulated background music and the wine cellar is the vault of a bank that once occupied the premises.

Readers might remember the occasional pop-up dinners and events that Andrisani and Rossi ran in Hobart during their visits here from Italy over the past couple of years.

What distinguished their food on those occasions was the exceptional quality of their pasta, their food’s artful presentation and their use of exemplary produce to deliver Italian-accented dishes that were refined and simply delicious to eat.

As many of our new restaurants focus on flashy novelty, Fico bucks the trend in offering something more mature and satisfying — real food in inspired combinations of a few simple components flowing from a less-is-more ethos similar to that which makes eating at Templo such a delight.

Fico’s menu is fairly bare-boned in its food descriptions, leaving it to the knowledgeable and attentive staff to fill in the gaps on such rarely seen items as the famed, small, black taggiasche olives from Liguria and, a first for me, green turnip tops either pureed on crostini or as a delicious partner to panseared tongue and beetroot.

Smoked eel on brioche with roe and seaweed.

Zucchini flowers with tomato, basil and ricotta. Pictures: SAM ROSEWARNE.

Instead of selecting from the a la carte menu or specials board, at lunch we chose to go with the menu’s suggestion of “let us cook for you six dishes, $65pp”. Excellent crusty, house-made bread and thin grissini came with the unusual but wonderfully refreshing sharpness of clear tomato water as a dip. This was followed by crunchy chickpea polenta delicately flavoured with lemon and rosemary followed in turn by brioche with savoury smoked eel garnished with the briny tang of salmon roe and seaweed.

Next came a superb beer and onion risotto creamed either with tallegio or 36-month-old parmesan and, to follow, a visually arresting and wonderfully flavoured dish of zucchini flower filled with ricotta served on concentric puddles of tomato and basil sauce making up the tricolours of the Italian flag. Then, off the specials board, we added a half-pigeon with mushrooms, beetroot and bay leaf.

The pigeon came with its breast perfectly cooked rare — as it should be — its leg and claw attached to serve, if you wished, as a handle.

Lunch rounded off with two outstanding desserts — a warm, wonderfully light and fluffy pistachio souffle with vanilla creme anglais and a French-inspired white chocolate and peach coulant. Both were delicious technical triumphs and, for someone like me who usually skips desserts, I was pleased I hadn’t.

Wine distributors, friends and local wineries have dug deep into their cellars for French, Italian and Tassie wines to include on a list that, at this stage, is smallish but full of interest including, as it does, several aged wines of impeccable repute.

So, all in all it was a most enjoyable lunch, up there among the city’s very best and least pretentious dining experiences.

A warm, wonderfully light and fluffy pistachio souffle with vanilla creme anglais and a French-inspired white chocolate and peach coulant.. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE.

ON THE MENU

Bread and grissini $5, oysters $3.50, smoked eel $8, rabbit and goose rillettes $16, more substantial dishes $28/$29, cheese $12, desserts $10.

FICO BISTRO AND VINO

151 Macquarie St, Hobart

Licensed

Dinner Tuesday 5pm to 10pm, lunch and dinner Wednesday to Saturday, long lunch noon to 4pm on Sunday

6245 3391

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