PICK OF THE BUNCH
Showcasing produce plucked straight from its rambling garden, this Northern NSW restaurant is as fresh as it gets
OSTERIA
1 BARCLAY DRIVE, CASUARINA
02 6674 9962 or osteriacasuarina.com.au
Breakfast and lunch daily, dinner Wednesday to Saturday
Book it: Open:
SOAKING up the spring sunshine, sipping pimms amid potted flowers and picking from the prettiest plates – Osteria is what leisurely lunch dreams are made of.
Casuarina’s Italian-inspired dining hub is well worth the 15minute drive from Tweed Heads for a weekend treat or school-holiday daytrip (there’s a fenced playground to preserve the peace for parents).
From the street there’s little hint of this secret garden, but if you step inside Osteria’s white picket fence, duck through bougainvillea arches and mysterious doors, you’ll discover its Alice-inWonderland portions.
It starts with sweet settings to pause for a morning brew and flows to an expansive dining courtyard clad in corrugated iron and raw-edged timber and alive with pillars of devil’s ivy.
A further function and wedding space is flooded with foliage and fairy lights, while a rambling garden – where we munch on lip-staining mulberries – is home to one compost-destroying bush turkey, little black bunnies and Grit Ceramics potter Leia Sherblom. Produced in the converted shipping container, Leia’s rustic plates provide a unique frame for the chef ’s creativity. Her pieces are also sold at the front of the restaurant, along with Refresh Me organic herbal teas handcrafted by Osteria’s barista. While we finally decide on a sun-splashed spot overlooking the herb garden to settle with fruit-filled cocktails and a platter of cured meats and cheese ($24), we can’t help continuing our explorations between courses.
“Fresh” may be the restaurant industry’s most abused adjective, but here it feels entirely appropriate.
There’s a crispness to the veg and fullness to the flavours that can’t be faked without the right foundations.
Soft curls of calamari fritti ($17) are livened up with lemon and thyme salt and served with pickled vegetables, smoky aioli and crispy artichokes – the sweetest I’ve ever tasted.
The spicy, slight bitterness of radicchio in a recommended side of fennel and orange salad ($9.50) is an excellent counterpoint.
For pasta without the associated heaviness, go for the orecchiette con broccoli ($23), tossed with olive oil, garlic, lemon, herb and salty slivers of anchovy.
Keep the vino flowing to really enter into the Italian spirit. Osteria’s well-chosen wine list is likely to lead you into temptation.