Perry has the answer. Having
been road-tested thoroughly in
Melbourne, Rosetta has landed
in Sydney as an instant hit. The
business crowd, so in thrall to
Rockpool Bar & Grill, pack it out,
devouring cacciatora-style duck,
chicken cooked under a brick, and
a polished eggplant parm at lunch,
clinking Spritzes on the terrace
over plates of burrata with grilled
treviso, then stepping back inside
to split a nice big veal cotoletta on
the bone and punch another bottle
of Barbaresco for dinner.
This is food about satisfaction
rather than surprises. Poached
artichokes are scattered with
almonds, olives and mercifully little
else. Baby snapper is grilled whole,
coming to the table beautifully juicy
and dressed with oregano-fragrant
salmoriglio, the salsa Sicilians love
to pair with seafood.
Pasta, made in-house, is
generally impressive, whether it’s
twists of strozzapreti swimming in a
pungent, powerfully salty sauce of
pecorino and pepper, butter-bathed
agnolotti plump with roast
pheasant, veal and pork, or curls
of garganelli and squid in a sauce
vibrant with bottarga and tomato.
It’s easy to spend money at
Rosetta. Those pasta dishes mostly
hover around the $30 mark for ➤The Rosetta dining room.
Above: veal tonnato. Above
right: head chef Richard
Purdue and Neil Perry.Neil Perry’s Rosetta plays Italian
straight, and it’s right on the
money, writes PAT NOURSE.
Keeping
it real
H
ere’s a thing: just about
every restaurant in
Australia does vitello
tonnato wrong. Simply
slices of veal topped with a tuna
mayonnaise? Do not pass Go, do
not collect 200 lire. Tonnato doesn’t
mean “tuna” – that’s “tonno” – it
means tuna-like. It’s a reference
to the preserved-tuna texture the
poached veal is supposed to have
once it’s spent a day or two
luxuriating in the sauce. It’s not
pretty, which is probably why most
chefs think they’re doing you a
favour by reinventing it, but in
doing so they’re robbing you of the
pleasures of its true feel and flavour.
But I’ve just found someone
who gets it right. Who says
“contemporary mores be damned”
and serves the veal in all its gloopy,
faintly fishy splendour, layered with
slivers of lemon and a healthy
scattering of capers. A thing of joy.
Which tiny backstreet osteria
is flying the flag for Piemontese
classics? Which nonna is keeping it
real? That intimate, 200-seat osteria
is called Rosetta, set in the quiet
village of Wynyard, and the nonna
in question goes by the name of
Neil Perry.
Straight Italian food done well
in a handsome setting is hard to
find in Sydney. It’s surprising,
really, when you consider that it’s
pretty much all half the city wants
to eat when it goes out for lunch
or dinner. Alessandro Pavoni,
Giovanni Pilu and Federico
Zanellato, the top-rated Italian-
born chefs in the city, remix their
traditions with smoke, coconut
and kombu. It’s not just the new
guard, either. Buon Ricordo, that
bastion of cucina vera, scatters
raw kingfish with crystals made
of dehydrated Campari, and
there’s puffed brown rice on the
spatchcock at Lucio’s.
It’s tasty stuff, to be sure. But
what if you don’t feel like “textures
of mushroom” or “miso-strone”?
What if you don’t want macadamia
nuts in your brodo?Sydney reviewPHOTOGRAPHY WILL HORNER (ROSETTA) & PAT NOURSE (AND ALSO)
GOURMET TRAVELLER 59