Giro D?Italia saves you the airfare to Italy
 

</p> https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_1...cbdd1c4b546c26
Cotoletta is a pork fillet rolled thin so it can be folded with melty fontina cheese and ham.Credit:Paul Jeffers

Chef and owner Domenico di Marco has been in Melbourne four years. He grew up in Bologna, in Italy’s north, but his parents were from Calabria in the south so he’s a versatile minstrel of cucina Italia. Previously, di Marco ran Albert Park’s l’Altro Mondo, where he cooked progressive, fusion versions of Italian dishes, having become intoxicated with Asian flavours upon his arrival in our hemisphere.

Giro is different – the food is simple, the menu is tight and the ambition is to transport diners with emotion and honesty rather than culinary acrobatics.

It works. The calamari is a golden pile of tangled tentacles, crisp and tender in all the right places, and served with a silky squid ink aioli. Those Sicilian arancini are crumbed with yesterday’s house-made focaccia; perfectly cooked risotto rice is studded with peas and chewy provolone cheese.

Porchetta, rolled, roasted, sliced pork “alla Romana”, is gently warmed through so it’s half-melted and gleaming, then topped with shards of crackling, roasted capsicum slices, capers and hard herbs. There’s not much to it but there doesn’t need to be when you sense every morsel has been placed with a cook’s caress.




https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_1...79e0dc9c8df6b9
Tiramisu is based on chef Domenico di Marco’s nonna’s recipe.Credit:Paul Jeffers

Pork is also shown the love in the cotoletta: a fillet that’s rolled thin so it can be folded with melty fontina cheese and ham. It’s coaxed to golden in foaming butter and topped with triple-cooked potatoes. You’ll want a salad with this one; the cos lettuce with walnuts and lemon is a frisky foil.

We’re in Italy so we’re serious about pasta. Plump tortelli are stuffed with sweet roasted pumpkin, parmesan and orange zest and drizzled with a sauce of burnt butter, sage and amaretti biscuits. The pasta casing is made with the pumpkin’s roasting juices, giving it a golden hue and tying the flavours together. It’s tasty, sure, but also part of a no-waste philosophy that sees pumpkin seeds used in salads, parsley stalks blitzed into herb oil and – amazingly – banana peel poached and turned into a puree that’s actually nice.



https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_1...5a7418f2119a62

Tortelli are stuffed with sweet roasted pumpkin, parmesan and orange zest.Credit:Paul Jeffers

Tiramisu (claimed by the Veneto, loved by the world) is based on di Marco’s nonna’s recipe boosted by a cheffy trick. Di Marco whisks egg yolks with water then sugar syrup to make what’s called a pate a bombe. It’s the foamy, heavenly base of what’s instantly become one of Melbourne’s best tiramisus.


What really makes Giro d’Italia special is the passion of its chef: di Marco darts between kitchen and dining room, welcoming, story-telling, sharing. He’s living this restaurant – he even sleeps upstairs – and he’s proof that food isn’t just fuel, it’s a tasty vehicle for cultural connection.




Source link



More