I’M A BIG SUPPORTER of mandatory pre-commitment in casinos.
Let’s start with their restaurants. You’ll need to commit to at least 60, if not 90 minutes to dining at Stefano Manfredi’s sleek new Italian venture Osteria Balla.
Cecina al forno: chickpea tart at Osteria Balla
It’s not long and worth every second, but some people have already gambled away their time on other commitments. The man at the next table is annoyed and telling his wife – you’ll hear everyone’s conversation because the American oak tables regimented along the banquettes are just a sideways bum-width apart – they’ve waited 25 minutes for mains. Three minutes later, he ups his complaint to 40 minutes. Friends had a smash and grab meal elsewhere and are waiting.
The floor is acutely aware of his displeasure and the kitchen, to their credit feeds him before our table, which arrived 15 minutes earlier.
Listen buddy, if you’ve just here to refuel, you’re in the wrong place. Head for the Food Quarter, the revamped and rebranded Star’s equivalent of a shopping centre food court.
On this side of The Star, looking out across the harbour towards the city, the casino is hoping to attract punters more interested in betting on a decent feed than the slot machines behind. To enhance their reputation, they’ve enlisted leading chefs, including New Yorker David Chang, whose Momofuku Seiobo is in the new Darling hotel.
Leading the initial charge are Melbourne’s Teage Ezard, with his stylish steakhouse, Black, and Stefano Manfredi, who has a long history of creating beautiful restaurants, most recently, Manfredi at Bells on the Central Coast
Stefano has both an artisan and artist’s eye for food and design. The name honours futurist poet and painter Giacomo Balla. He’s enlisted long time collaborator Luigi Rosselli (an architect who came to Australia to work on Parliament House and stayed) to create a colourful, geometric space. There’s an aperitivi bar for drinks and antipasto and the long, large glass-walled dining room seats 160. Stefano patrols the floor as chef-patron.
Hill End artist Lino Alvarez made the terracotta plates and Manfredi’s own ceramics also feature. Most notable are the striking honey-coloured lights by Seattle glassblower Dante Marioni, which look like beehives in a Fritz Lang film.
While the room shimmers with future promise, the menu looks back, drawing on the regional heritage of both Brescia-born Stefano and head chef Gabriele Taddeucci, who grew up in Tuscany.
Divided along traditional Italian lines – antipasti, primi, pasta, then meats and fish from the wood-grill, it’s a menu that’s more rustic than sophisticated, relying on quality to justify its simplicity. Stefano collaborates with smallgoods butcher Pino Tomini Foresti so the 10 salumi includes finocchietta Balla, $7 for 50g, a Tuscan fennel salami and the diminutive, chewy Salamino Balla $7, which lets the pure flavour of cured pork shine through.
From the antipasti, cecina al forno, $8, a pancake-like baked chickpea tart with pecorino, is glorious street food; the crudo of fish, $10, in this instance mulloway, dressed in no more than Tuscan olive oil, lemon juice and herbs, straightforward bliss.
Most of the time, it’s all about adding one classy Italian ingredient to make the obvious interesting, as the wood-grilled quail and onions splashed with Barbera vinegar, $24, demonstrates. The best example is the special of white truffle from Piedmont shaved onto the house-made tagliatelle and worth its $39 as an entree or $59 main.
I’m not sure the same can be said paying $39 for wood-grilled lamb shoulder sprinkled with herbs and crunchy pangrattato (fried breadcrumbs). The meat, from dorper lambs grazing on native saltbush, has a distinctive flavour, however, it remains sinewy and chewy despite 12-hours of sous vide cooking before it’s finished on the grill.
In contrast, wickedly lush, gelatinous and sticky ox cheek braised in Barbera, $35, is enticingly sultry, especially when sweetened by pea puree.
Gadget freaks will love the wine list on an iPad, but to me it feels like watching football from close up on TV, rather than in the stands, where you get an overview of the game.
Stefano has designed his own app for the list, but you can only search by style, rather than region or price, which defeats advantages of the technology to some extent. Thankfully, there’s an analogue sommelier to guide you, although $58 for King Valley’s Pizzini wines suggests some healthy mark ups.
Sformato di zucca: pumpkin & amaretto flan with anise cream
At $18, desserts aren’t a giveaway either, although liquorice lovers will adore the pretty sformato di zucca. It’s pure Stefano: a pumpkin and amaretto flan with anise cream which takes traditon into the future.
It’s also Balla: poetry and art combined and perhaps, ahead of its time.
* A version of this review first appeared in The Daily Telegraph, October 2011
Where Level G, Harbourside, The Star, 80 Pyrmont Street Pyrmont; Ph 1800 700 700
When Lunch Tue-Fri noon-2.30pm; dinner Mon-Sat 5.30-10.30pm,
Food Italian
Service Smooth & silken
In a mouthful One of Sydney’s most lauded and long-standing chefs, Stefano Manfredi, returns to the city with a smart and stylishly casual harbourside restaurant as one of the key dining attractions in the revamped The Star casino.
