Il Pastificio – too

The daughters were both back in the ‘diff for the weekend so off we went for a family meal and where better to try than Il Pastificio in its latest incarnation

Relocated from its’ previous bijou spot on Wellfield Road to a position on
Pen-Y-Lan Road the new location is much larger than the previous restaurant and it looks like it needs to be. We were lucky to get an early seating but when booking we were were asked that if we hadn’t finished eating by eight then might we take out coffees on the sofas downstairs as there was another group arriving. The word on just how good the food here is obviously out.
We ordered partly from the set menu and partly from the specials board.

For starters we tried the Fungi, Formaggio e Noce (large mushroom stuffed with goat’s cheese, pear and walnut):

I’m reliably informed by the wife that this was delicious but I didn’t get a look in to try it myself.
The eldest daughter had the Speck, Spinach and Provolone which I did manage to get a taste

The light green flavours of the spinach were the perfect foil to the mature salty flavorings of the meat and cheese – delicious.
The youngest had the artichoke salad

which was another simple dish where outstanding ingredients were allowed to speak for themselves, the artichoke being delightfully creamy.

I had one of the specials – scallops with creamed artichoke and chorizo

The scallops were just cooked to a wobbly-but-white-in-the-middle perfection and the combination of the white fish (bi-valve?), spicy grilled chorizo and creamy mashed artichoke was just spot-on.

I think I won the starter round, who would won the battle of the mains? (Not that I’m competitive or anything)

I again went to the specials board for the rack of lamb with mushrooms in a wine sauce and sauted veg with rosemary

Note the special razor sharp knife, presented by the waiter with no little panache. It was totally unnecessary –  the lamb cutlets were so perfectly pink-in-the-middle buttery perfection that I could have cut them with a plastic British rail spoon. My only mild complaint would be that the sauce was not quite warm enough so brought down the temperature of the whole dish. A minor annoyance though.

The “Panzarotti, ricotta a spinaci”, tubes of pasta stuffed with creamy ricotta and spinach, drizzled with butter and olive oil and sage was fab, the sage’s turpenols complimenting but not overpowering the subtlety of the other lighter flavours

The Paccheri Ortelana (meant to be a dish of tubular pasta but that had all gone so was replaced by tagliatelle) was pasta with pesto, aubergine and courgette. The sauce was a balancing act of sweet peppers and tangy tomatoes and as usual was excellent.

However there is no doubting the star of the show for the main courses. The eldest went for the half-lobster.
She was introduced to the fella before the starters arrived

and then with the usual Italian love of theatre it was produced under a silver cloche

And …. Ta Da!

An outstanding dish of stunning lobster meat served on a mound of unctuous prawn risotto. I couldn’t taste it myself because of my tedious allergies but am told it was fabulous.

For dessert we went for an old standard of tiramisu

bitter-sweet, alcoholic and lush, and big enough for two to share.

The girls opted for salted caramel torte with espresso and vanilla ice-cream.

Sticky, crunchy, caramelly deliciousness

All this, including coffee

and a couple of bottles of Shiraz came to £140.

Now that may sound pricy but that’s less than forty quid a head for three courses of this quality for four people including two (count ’em two) bottles of wine and coffee. Personally I think that represents stunning value. A pretty special place if you’re looking for somewhere to celebrate a special occasion.

Highly recommended

Carluccio’s, Cardiff Bay

Just a quick post to say the new Carluccio’s in Cardiff Bay has opened and looks rather spiffing.

We did a 10km round the Bay today so decided we could indulge in a few bits from the deli’ section. We shared a ciabatta roll with mortadella and provolone, a focaccia roll with prosciutto and mozzarella and a roasted veg pastry, which we finished off with a three way split of a lemon tart. It was all delicious for barely more than you’d expect to pay due a few dodgy Tesco sarnies. Eaten on a bench looking out across the water, I suspect our bay runs will never be the same again.

Il Pastificio

Wow! What a meal. Sorry for the spoiler but there you have it. Another amazing Italian restaurant shock. Not sure what is going on with Cardiff at the moment but it seems to have an explosion of tremendous indie restaurants. Fresh on the heels of an excellent Italian meal at Anatoni’s we stumbled into another gem of a place, this time it was Il Pastificio on Wellfield Road in Roath.

The restaurant itself is a little corner unit – previously home to KL Canalog (which was another of our favorites), close enough to Chaiholics that the chefs could and did wave and gesture to each other through the large windows.

As well as pointing out and telling us how good the neighbouring competition was the head-chef also explained the menu and daily specials to us with typical theatrical Italian hand gestures and when I mentioned my seafood allergy told us not to worry, we could basically have any combination of the ingredients we preferred – now that’s what I cooking.

We ordered a bottle of red – Amanti Primitivo to get us started. Damsen and sour cherry indeed. Delicious.

Starters were a sharing platter – well it was a birthday meal and sharing platters are always a good barometer of what’s to come:

The forecast from this one was fine, buttery artichoke hearts with a hint of vinegar, green grassy olive oil with sweet balsamic and warm crusty bread for dipping, smooth ripe olives and slices of Italian sausages cut through with spices, big blobs of delicious lardy fat and nuggets of pepper and pistachios. The future looked good.

The mains were spectacular. Don’t you love it when the chef is so proud of what they’re cooking that they bring the uncooked produce out to show it off? The fish, fresh from Cardiff Market looked excellent so it was tuna for me and king prawn for the missus. We’d previously been told how good the fresh hand-made pasta was so D2 went for that.

My tuna steak was just-cooked, pink-in-the-middle perfection topped with courgette spirals, excellent black ink tagliatelle and a gorgeous chilli and garlic sauce.

The spinach and ricotta stuffed panzerotti came in a sage and butter sauce. I got a taste of this and it was my favourite dish of the evening.

The sweet pepper risotto with king prawn was irresistibly dramatic with a grilled colossal crustacean sat atop a mound of saffron yellow rice cooked to a barely soft-enough bite.

Now, as a family, less is usually more, so we invariably go for just mains or at most two courses. But this was so good we had to do dessert and coffee as well:

The missus went for a wonderful tremulous panna cotta topped with sweet sharp strawberries.

D2 had the mango cheesecake, as recommended by the waitress and it was velvety with just the right level of mouth-puckering sharpness.

My tiramisu was big enough for a small assault force and packed enough calories for a march to the south pole. It didn’t touch the sides – delectable.

A fantastic meal and another big recommendation.