TAS

FICO

151 Macquarie Street, Hobart (03) 6245 3391 ficofico.net Open Friday-Sunday for lunch and Tuesday-Saturday for dinner After working together at the Michelinstarred El Coq in Vicenza, Northern Italy, Hobart-raised Oskar Rossi and Neapolitan Federica Andrisani wanted their first restaurant to be comfortable and warm. The wine list had to be a balance of natural and older wines. And they wanted to cook with the best produce and create simply delicious food. This talented duo have achieved all of the above, which you’ll discover when you settle in with an aperitivo of smoked eel, brioche, roe and seaweed and a crisp Meadowbank Harvest pét-nat from the Derwent Valley. For antipasto, there’s chargrilled King Island baby octopus with tomato, basil and olives. The pasta is handmade (try the tagliolini with cime di rapa and aged parmesan or the tortelli with goat’s curd, aged balsamic and radicchio). And once you taste Gli Aironi risotto with taleggio and onion reduction, you’ll never want arborio rice again.

DIER MAKR

123 Collins Street, Hobart (03) 6288 8910 diermakr.com Open Wednesday-Sunday for dinner Chef Kobi Ruzicka and front-of-house star Sarah Fitzsimmons moved to Hobart from Eltham, in suburban Melbourne, to open this stylish bistro and wine bar housed in a 1900s building on Collins Street in the CBD. A set menu that simply reads “Carrot” starts with a crisp shell made from carrot juice and vegetable protein (like a vegetarian version of pork crackling) filled with labna and pickled carrot top. “Yolk, delikata” is roasted delicata squash, from Fat Carrot Farm, topped with cured egg yolk and filled with cashew cream, crispy croutons and sage. “Mussels, beer” is a tasty reduction of mussel liquor and Venom Golden Ale from Reservoir in Victoria, plus plump mussels with black mizuna. You get the (glorious) picture. Choose a bottle of organic or biodynamic wine from the cellar, which leans towards wines by small producers. Better still, Dier Makr is an off-licence so you can also buy a bottle to take home.