Italian & Sons vino e cucina
Shop 6
7 Lonsdale St
Braddon
Phone 6162 4888
italianandsons.com.au
Its easy to see how Italian and Sons won their SMH hat - lovely food, great service, nice decor - its a great combination. Make sure you book or you probably won't get in. Its busy - but for a reason - its good.
There were three of us dining here. We listened to the daily specials and studied the menu but eventually decided to keep it simple and share three pizza's and a salad. Pizza Bianca bases are prepared with Queensland buffalo bocconcini but all of ours were Pizza Rossa bases having tomato and Queensland buffalo bocconcini. The first to arrive was Margherita which had fior di latte, basil and extra virgin olive oil. It had a clean crisp taste with the salty cheese balancing well with the light tomato base and fresh basil leaves. As they served it immediately to plates I didn't get a photo of the entire pizza.
Then came the Diavolo topped with finocchiona salami, fried peppers, chilli and roast garlic. The fried peppers were in a small bowl at the side - to be added as desired. This was a good touch - not everyone likes things the same heat! This was another winner.
Lastly our Rucola appeared with prosciutto san daniele, tomato, rocket and reggiano. It was (again) another nice blend of flavours that seemed to each lift the other. These aren't heavy or stogy pizza's - they are way above this. Italian & Sons use a woodfired oven - you can see it from the back part of the restaurant - and their own special base recipes. Delicious.
We also had a caprese salad of buffalo bocconcini, tomato and basil which was simple and tasty combination of just a few ingredients that went well.
After some lovely pizza's and a few wines we just couldn't resist a few desserts too. Two of us had the flourless amedei chocolate torte with orange and salted caramel gelato. It tasted great - the torte was rich and gooey and the orange lifted and offset it nicely. The salted caramel gelato was a huge winner. The only criticism of this dish is that we both agreed a slightly larger serving would have been better - it was quite small.
The trio of house made gelati - raspberry, chocolate (with 70% cocoa) and salted caramel - came in a frozen bowl to keep things cold! This was a nice touch and worked too! They were full of flavour and our resident gelato expert said it was one of the best he'd tried (and he'd recently been to Italy too).
Prices at Italian & Sons are a bit higher - as you'd expect for the quality. Antipasti ranges from $8.00 for olives up to $22.00 fro wood fired Crystal Bay prawns. Pizza's are all $24.00 and pasta's are $27.00 or $28.00. Salads are $12.00 to $18.00 - ours was $18.00. Platti Del Giorno - mains - vary each day of the week but are either $32.00 or $33.00 - and they looked amazing too - next time! Desserts (Dolci) are all $12.00 and they also have an interesting range of Italian cheeses as well. Next time too!
I liked Italian & Sons - a lot. Its food was excellent as was the service - friendly and efficient. The decor was good - but maybe not quite as good as the other features of the place. Will I be back - yes please!
