Soffritto367 King St
Newtown, Sydney
Soffritto is a smallish sophisticated and elegant restaurant in the heart of food central in Newtown - King St. Owner/chef Matt Green has created an intimate place seating around 50 with predominantly Italian based food but with broader European influences also showing through.
The arrival of some lovely home made bread with some fruity olive oil for dipping started our dining journey.This was followed shortly afterwards with a delicately flavoured amuse bouche of prawn and saffron bisque - which is also available to order as an entree.
In fact after tasting this I almost regretted not ordering it - it was that good!
Mlady started with a simple entree of ravioli with Tasmanian bug meat, salsa verde and a touch of chilli.It also had cherry tomatoes on it and looked amazing.
Fortunately it also tasted as good as it looked and it was a very generous serving as well!
My entree was the tortellini filled with duck, balsamico and sage. This was an amazing dish in every way!
The duck is slow cooked overnight then carefully de-boned.
The flavours were lovely and it was a huge serving for an entree.
Mlady had a tough decision for her main course but eventually chose the barramundi baked in salt pastry with herb and almond quinoa.
The pastry isn't really edible but it keeps in the moisture as the fish cooks and the flesh was beautiful. The quinoa went perfectly as well.
A generous side serving of green beans also went very nicely.
My main course of choice was boned spatchcock stuffed with confit garlic served with baby carrots and polenta.
Again it was delicious! The spatchcock was beautifully moist and tender and the filling added depth and even more flavour. This was a beautiful dish.
A bottle of Italian Chianti went nicely with our mains.
Mlady, being a bit of a chocoholic - well a lot of a chocoholic - had the warm Belgian chocolate pudding with berries and vanilla gelato for her dessert. It was rich, decadent and hit her need for chocolate perfectly. The berries and gelato added even more to the combination - softening the chocolate.A couple of glasses of home made limoncello topped this off so well!
I was equally troubled by what to choose as several options looked great. I eventually chose the pear, apple and fig crumble with vanilla gelato.It was - as everything is here at Soffritto - a generous serving and tasted great.
The crumble was nice and crunchy (as it should be) and the fruit combination was full of flavour. It was a lovely end to a lovely meal.
Soffritto is an exceptionally good restaurant. The food is beautifully prepared and presented, full of wonderful flavours and textures and served in generous quantities and at very reasonable prices! They even do a three course meal for only $55.00 - fantastic value for this quality. Service is friendly and efficient and they are happy to offer suggestions on matching wines with your meals if you want! The restaurant has an elegant, sophisticated feel to it but it isn't pretentious. It is a place that is well worth visiting!
Sir and Mlady dined as guests of Soffritto and Matt Green. Special thanks also to Riccardo for looking after us so capably on our visit.
