Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Church St. Enoteca

527 Church St Richmond, Victoria, 3121 tel : 03 9428 7898

This is an honest review about this restaurant's food. However, before you decide to attend this restaurant based on this review, please read my most recent review in regards to their service

When you hear people talking about Italian restaurants in Melbourne, for some reason you never hear them mention Church St. Enoteca. Surrounded by designer furniture stores and Imported Car stores which stock cars that cost more than I could ever afford. The restaurant is set in an old car showroom itself, but has had a magnificent make over, which is now a beautiful room to dine.
I've been to Church St. Enoteca many times now and there's many reasons as to why I return. The service is friendly and attentive, the prices are very reasonable and most importantly, the food is simply stunning!
Now, you'll have to forgive me, because I have been a bit lazy and when I took these photos, it was actually a couple of months ago, so I can't remember exactly what we ordered, but I'll do my best to remember.
First up we were offered a tasting spoon, compliments of the kitchen. Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what it was, but I'm pretty sure it was a Scallop Ceviche. I do remember that it was tasty though.


For Entree, we always order the Anti Pasto Della Casa plate to share ($24), which tickles every different taste bud in your mouth- it's so good. It contains things like Baby Beets with Goats Curd, Deep Fried Olives (this things are amazing!), Buffalo Mozzarella wrapped with Basil and Prosciutto, Deep Fried Cheese (I think it was Fontina cheese), a chopped up mix of traditional Italian cold meats (this kind of looks like Pate) and there's also a Octopus Salad.

For mains I had the tastiest Blue Eye, which was served on perfectly cooked Lemon Risotto. I can't believe how many restaurants do Risotto so badly, but this place does it spot on. On the side are little deep fried balls of Mud Crab and the whole lot is drizzled with Lemon infused Olive oil.

Rach had the Whole, Deep Fried Snapper, served on Italian Vegetables. Once again, perfectly cooked and so, so tasty!

I apologise for the lack of detail in this review, unfortunately I forgot all about writing the review, but hopefully the photographs of the beautifully fresh, well presented, delicious food, speak for themselves. Church St. Enoteca is by far my favourite Italian restaurant in Melbourne and let me tell you Fifteen can only hope to one day cook Italian food as good as this!

9/10

Modern Italian Flavours, with Art Deco Surrounds

4 comments:

Cherrie Pie said...

I used to work across the road from here and once the boss took a couple of us out to lunch. From memory I had a risotto with Truffle oil. That was delish...

The anti pasto plate looks very enticing but I love the look of the whole deep fried snapper. Looks like you enjoy your meals everytime you go :)

Adski said...

hi there cherrie pie,
haha, yeh i noticed that all my reviews recently have been really good ones and i've rated them very highly. Maybe it's because i only go to the good restaurants. :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Adski,
Just wanted to say I love your food blogs without sounding too simpering! The Ezard Challenge in particular sounds like huge fun - I'm also a huge Ezard groupie, but feel too intimidated to tackle cooking the recipes myself.
I had a fabulous meal a few weeks ago down at Church St Enoteca - I was at a dinner of the Shiraz Club (a food and wine club which puts on dinners with mystery dishes and wines - the fun part is eating the dishes 'blind', then trying to guess the ingredients in each dish, and the wine varieties. It's fun, but harder than you think!), and we had the most heavenly entree - zucchini flowers stuffed with marinated feta then lightly crisp fried in a tempura-like batter - if I had to order my last meal on earth, it'd have to be on the shortlist!
Anyway, keep up the good work (especially with all the mouth-watering photos)...
Cheers,
mutemonkey

Adski said...

Hi Mute Monkey,
Thankyou so much for the lovely comment! I love getting little notes like that, it always makes the time i spend taking these photos and writing about them much more worth while!
Your night at Church St Enoteca sounds great, I'd love to do that whole tasting blind thing. (remember that restaurant on St Kilda Rd, that was in the pitch black darkness??)
Don't be intimidated by Mr Ezard's recipes, while there's a lot of ingredients in some of them and a few steps, none of them have been too difficult yet, just time consuming. I recommend setting aside a day to do the shopping in the morning and an arvo for the cooking. Have a dinner party, serve some of Ezard's dishes and your friends will LOVE you. Trust me! :)