L'Italiano Cucine E Pizza
96 Longueville Rd
Lane Cove, Sydney
Lane Cove is becoming quite a hub for restaurants and cafes - and the locals and those nearby are certainly not disappointed at all. Hunting Italian on this occasion took us to L'Italiano on a warm Sydney evening. This is a long thin place. The first thing you notice on arrival is the large pizza oven inside. It's a great eye-catcher and very inviting.
The menu has plenty of variety - as you'd expect - so we debated what to have. We eventually landed on sharing a serving of Ricotta al Forno - or slow baked ricotta. It was such a light yet tasty starter with the added oomph of a sliver of sundried tomato on each piece. We were impressed.
Mlady wanted a more traditional dish so went with the fettuccine al ragu. This wider pasta had a rich Bolognese sauce with it and it was a good sized serving as well. A dash of cracked pepper added a bit of extra zing.
Sir went for a favourite combo of his - pasta and prawns. The dish - Linguine ai Gamberi - served pasta and prawns in a creamy garlic, chilli and vodka sauce. It was an interesting mix that worked well with a subtle vodka scent, a nice kick of chilli and some tender wafer thin slivers of garlic. He thoroughly enjoyed this.
We tend to steer towards wines from the country our food originates from. It's obviously not necessary with the wonderful varieties available these days. So here we chose a 2013 Rocca Montepulciano from the Abruzzo region in Southern Italy. It was a nice medium bodied wine that went well with our food.
Dessert - the final frontier - was next. Mlady went with a hard to resist favourite of hers - tiramisu. This arrived in a good sized deep square made-to-measure individual serving. It was a nice finish to her meal that she again enjoyed.
Sir went for the Cannoli Siciliani - four smaller cannoli filled with fresh ricotta and finished alternately with chocolate chips or pistachio flakes. This was another winner.
L'Italiano offers good friendly helpful service which couldn't be faulted. They look after you well here. The food offers variety and plenty of taste too. It's a pleasant place that's well worth visiting.