RESTAURANT NEWS
MELBOURNE
The team behind Tipo 00 has opened Osteria Ilaria next door to their popular pasta bar. Like Tipo, Ilaria is Italian focused, just with less pasta and more space. The 90-seater has a central marble pass where chef and owner Andreas Papadakis plates up the likes of whole boned duck with vin santo and hazelnut sauce, butterflied whiting with clams and sea-herb salad, and liver sausage with pan-fried bread stuffing. There’s also an enormous basement cellar that co-owner Luke Skidmore has filled with wine from “all over the place”, says Papadakis. SYDNEY
Bacco, the latest osteria from chef and restaurateur Andrew Cibej (Vini, Berta, 121BC) is here. Cibej secured the 80-seater, on the corner of Ash Street and Angel Place, with the help of China Doll restaurateurs Steve and John Anastasiou, his partners in the restaurant. There’s an espresso bar for panini and coffee in the morning while at lunch and dinner chef Scott Williams (late of MoVida) serves pasta alla chitarra with sea urchin and samphire, say, and dry-aged lamb tartare with whipped anchovy. MARGARET RIVER Western Australia’s Margaret River region has welcomed former Noma Australia chef Baxter Newstead to Knee Deep
Wines. Native and wild ingredients star on in his new menu (raw scallops with finger lime and ice plant; oxheart tomato grilled over jarrah with pickled quandongs).
On the sweet side, there’s a “rose” of white plum dusted with rosella powder. NEW YORK
The Grill is the first of three restaurants to open at the former Four Seasons site in midtown Manhattan. Mario Carbone (also of hotticket restaurant Carbone) is in the kitchen channelling the big and bold style of ’40s and ’50s America. Waiters clad in Tom Ford serve lobster and filet mignon three ways; potatoes and dessert soufflés have their own sections on the menu. Next to open is Pool, with Rich Torrisi at the helm, in July. ADELAIDE
Chef Andrew Douglas, previously of Melbourne’s Boilermaker House and
Eau De Vie, conjures Spanish and Portuguese flavours at Iberia, in the East End. Carrots pickled in honey and ras el hanout are a standout, as is caldoso with plump chickpeas and vegetables picked from Douglas’s family farm in the Adelaide Hills. The drinks list favours Spanish wine, craft beer, vermouth and sherry.