VINCENZO’S CUCINA VERA
77 Unley Road
Parkside South Australia 5063
W www.vincenzoscucinavera.com.au
E vincenzoscucinavera@bigpond.com.au
T +61 8 8271 1000
F +61 8 8272 1000
OPEN luncheon Thursday and Friday from 12 noon, dinner Tuesday to Saturday from 6.00 pm

FOOD What is the matter with Adelaide diners? Five of us on a Tuesday night eating utterly brilliant food, and the only table! Lovely for us, we were able to be noisy and naughty but where the hell was everyone else? The de ja vu almost makes me weep, a reminder of when, on a cold winter’s nights in Adelaide we often served one or two. It makes me angry to see so many mediocre places packed whilst mid—week in winter some of Adelaide’s best struggle to get 10 people. Shame on you all! For the price of two bad meals, try having one great meal!
Vincenzo LaMontagna cooks like an angel and his partner and restaurant manager Lara Marro does the rest; it is a fabulous combination. Lovely modern rooms, rare wine room, pristine presentation in all respects but we are not wasting more of this review on what you cannot eat. The focus at Vincenzo’s Cucina Vera is on the food and is confirmation that chef—owned restaurants have more heart than most. Anti pasto comprised little cheese stuffed lamb cutlets in crunchy coats, stuffed zucchini flowers in tissue paper thin crispy batter, arancine, and exquisitely tender quail wrapped in pancetta. A prawn consommé with cuttlefish ink ravioli with a great big local prawn, was wonderful but also evidence of a really good chef because the stock was clearly made from the shells and fish bones. It was a restrained, almost imperceptible touch of the same stock that perfected the divine parpardelle with prawn and truffle. The pasta folded against itself in a tender pile, a balanced back taste of perfect stock, tiny pearl onions and Tasmanian truffle; it was perfect! The flavours of the tortellini filled with Fontina cheese and splattered generously with French summer truffle were superb and the only criticism of the entire meal was that they were unevenly cooked which meant that some were perfect and others raw at the seams.
The use of the best ingredients is overwhelmingly the basis of LaMontagna’s cooking. Truffle oil is real truffle oil, not the nasty version most Australian chefs use that tastes more of rancid garlic than it does of real truffle. The Jamón Ibérico, sparingly embellished with his truffle oil and served with baccala croquettes was a fabulous combination. Kobi beef that had been finished for 300 days on grass was melt in the mouth with the wonderful smoky taste that only a wood grill can deliver. Served with poached egg and truffle it was masterful. Most important to note is whilst some of LaMontagna’s cooking is modern. The essence served as an amuse bouche in a corked test tube like bottle would be so much better in a demi tasse. Ferran Adria has a lot to answer for, but every generation of chef has the right to experiment, to create, but this dish should have come served with one of those fat straws from bubble tea which would have made it easy to drink. LaMontagne cooks Italian at it is meant to be. A couple of perfect seasonal ingredients sparingly embellished and lovingly cooked. This is a restaurant that starts the good experience of their house–made bread and finishes it with damned fine desserts (just a couple) and a really good coffee.
Desserts are specialed and it was the lemon meringue tart that took the prize. Proof that pastry does not have to sit waiting for weeks for a victim to serve it to. Vincenzo’s Cucina Vera deserves your support they are young passionate and we want to keep them.

WINE There are some iconic wines, some favourite wines on the list at Vincenzo’s but there is a lack of depth and complexity in the over all list. Every decent winemaker in South Australia should give them two bottles of their best wine on consignment. Rockford, Paracombe and Tim Adams wines are so clever at discovering, and most importantly supporting the new and fabulous and as diners we owe them a lot, not just for the fab wines they make, or discoveries they make but the support they give to the future dining experience. There is some opportunity to be as indulgent as the food by selecting from their rare wine room which we know South Australian winemakers are now going to be very keen to embellish.

OWNER AND EXECUTIVE CHEF — Vincenzo LaMontagna
RESTAURANT MANAGER — Lara Marro