Manly Wharf - East Esplanade,
Manly, Sydney
Hugos Group has gone from strength to strength. Their Manly restaurant is in a prime location on the end of Manly Wharf. Whether you're here in daytime or at night it has spectacular views. It's a modern classy place with pleasant surroundings and a real upbeat feel to it. It's understandably popular too!
Mlady has a weakness for croquettes - it's her vice - and she quickly spotted them on the Specials menu here.They were described as smoked ham and mozzarella croquettes with truffled mayonnaise. They certainly sounded delicious from the description alone.
I was more than happy to get some as the truffled mayonnaise caught my attention - I love anything with truffles in it.
She loved them (and I did too) and it was a generous serving as well. They arrived piping hot and were nicely crisp on the outside and beautifully gooey and packed with flavour on the inside. The mayonnaise was great as well! They certainly met Mlady's expectations and standards!
Our second entree was salt and pepper Fremantle octopus with chilli and lime mayonnaise - again from the Specials menu. Salt and pepper anything is usually pretty good - the combination is well and truly tried and proven. The octopus was perfectly cooked and beautifully tender. The salt and pepper crispy coating went well with it too. The surprise factor was the delicious mayonnaise that came with it. It had great flavours!
Hugos are famous for their pizzas so it seemed appropriate to order some to see what all the fuss was about. We started with a spinach pizza with toppings of spinach, semi dried tomato, olives, feta and chilli on a thin base. The flavours were great with plenty of quality ingredients and it also had a nice kick to it from the chilli. The thin crisp base was great as well.
Ever since or trip to Italy we tend to gauge the pizza at restaurants against these standards. The classic Margherita is possibly the benchmark for this. Our Margherita at Hugos had Roma tomato, buffalo milk mozzarella, Parmesan and fresh basil. It was simple and elegant and certainly a high quality Margherita that we thoroughly enjoyed. We now understand why Hugos pizzas are so highly regarded!
Hugos at Manly is a lovely restaurant. Service was both friendly and attentive and the decor is modern yet relaxed, befitting its location. It's a busy place - but it's popular so this is to be expected.
It's advisable to get here early too, if you can, as they don't take bookings - but they'll do their best to get you a table as quickly as possible.
Sir and Mlady dined as guests of Hugos at Manly. Special thanks to Sharon Woodcock of Hugos for arranging our visit and to their Restaurant Manager Adam for running things so smoothly here.
