Review : Soffritto

367 King Street
Newtown

Tues-Sat 6pm-late

Soffritto describes itself as a "contemporary European restaurant"....amongst the scores of Thai restaurants scattered throughout Newtown, Soffritto is a most welcome oasis.

Buggles & Squeak have been wanting to try Soffritto for quite some time now, so along with M1 we decided to see if we could score a table.
As luck would have it we were able to secure a table for three.

Soffritto is a tiny restaurant, I would guess it would sit no more than 30 or 40 people.

The menu is small and concise with 5 entrees, 4 mains & 4 desserts.
Entrees average at around $17, mains in the mid $20's & desserts $12. You can choose to order 3 courses for $49.

The restaurant is BYO (wine only), so we decided to bring a bottle of Jorgensen Hill McLaren Vale Shiraz 2008 with us. This wine is available through Grays Online Wines and let me tell you it isn't a bad drop.  Buggles & Squeak are not huge fans of Shiraz, normally finding it a tad heavy and strong. The Jorgensen Hill however, was incredibly smooth and not acidic at all. It had a very creamy feel in the mouth & a really nice spicy fruitiness. A really lovely wine that went down very easily.

Onto the food...

For entree I ordered the Truffled potato gnocchi and parmigianno. This was so good. The gnocchi was feather light, like a soft billowy cloud. The gnocchi itself was subtly flavoured allowing it to completely absorb the creamy, salty richness of the parmigianno sauce. An absolute winner.

Buggles ordered the Tortellini filled with duck, balsamico & sage. Another brilliant dish. The duck meat was rich & full of flavour beautifully contrasted by the sweetness of the balsamico. Very, very good.

For mains M1 & I ordered Roast fillet of beef wrapped in pancetta with mushrooms, garlic spinach & mash. The beef was tender, but mine was more medium than the requested medium/rare. The mash potato however was perfectly creamy with just the right amount of salt....ths spinach well cooked with no grit. Not a great dish, but certainly one I would have no problem ordering again.

Buggles ordered the Spatchcock with ricotta, lentils & chilli fig jam. Buggles said the skin was very crispy & the meat moist. She didn't notice the ricotta until she actually saw it, so didn't think it added anything to the dish. The chilli fig jam was sweet with a hint of heat.


To accompany our meals we ordered the roast potatoes & green beans. 

As strange as this may seem, we decided to skip dessert....not sure why, but nothing seemed to take our fancy.

Soffritto is a great little local restaurant adding much needed variety to the Newtown dining scene. We shall return!

Squeak