Assaggio

Entering Assaggio Ristorante for an evening of fine Italian food I saw red - quite literally. Whoever designed the interior of this restaurant didn't have a subtle and stylish backdrop to good food as their intention. The back wall is lined in red and orange vinyl covered tiles, the seats are a bright orange red, even the bar is tiled in a mixture of red and orange. We were happy that we had a window table where we could look at something else.

Assaggio has long been mentioned as one of Adelaide's top restaurants for Italian food. Having loved Augé we were keen to see if this was anywhere near the same league. Unfortunately that wasn't our experience.

To be fair the menu is absolutely immense and we were only able to try a small portion of it. I was also guilty of misreading and misinterpreting both my entrée and my main so any disappointment here was at least partially my own fault.

For my entrée I ordered vitello tonnato. I once had this dish as sublimely thin layers of sashimi tuna laid next to paper thin shards of raw veal. It was exquisite. This regrettably was a lesser creation. Checking the menu afterwards I saw that it did mention a "salsa" of tonno e caperi which I had not noticed when I ordered it. Nonetheless I could have been happy with that but I found the sauce very disappointing, tasting as if it had been made with tinned tuna rather than fresh and the layers of "roasted" veal on the plate were dry and far too generous. The dish was overly filling for an entrée without being overly tasty.

My companion's entrée was more successful. He had flowering zucchini blossoms filled with baby spinach, gorgonzola and pine nut ricotta mousse. The flowers were crumbed and fried rather than done in a tempura batter as I personally prefer, but the filling was very good. They were served alongside some roasted capsicum which added some nice colour as well as sweetness to offset the gorgonzola.

My misreading of the next course had much to do with a misplaced comma. The pasta dish I chose was printed as "Pasta with ragú of pork, fennel & chilli, sausage & Persian lentils slow cooked in lambrusco wine". I took this to mean the pasta was smothered in a rich meaty ragú as well as containing fennel, chilli, sausage and lentils. In reality the pork, fennel and chilli were the ingredients in the sausage. I felt there was too much sausage relative to the other ingredients, especially as the sausage was spicy enough to overpower the other flavours of the dish.

My companion ordered better once again. He had the aged eye fillet of beef medallions, braised oxtail, on orange-scented roast butternut pumpkin. The meat was served in an impressive tower and was covered with a sublime reduced barolo and tomato sauce that showed what this kitchen can do when it puts its mind to it. However the beef did not arrive medium rare as requested and the orange butternut mash had too much orange flavouring. A hint of orange or a touch of zest might have been intriguing and tasty, but the butternut was completely swamped with the most intense orange flavour that once again disturbed not only that ingredient but the balance of the whole dish.

To finish my husband enjoyed a tiramisu which was delicious but more suited in size to a main course than a dessert. I had a very good pot of leaf peppermint tea.

Service throughout was well paced and friendly. Had the food been better we might well have ignored the decor and returned. As it is, with options like Augé available we think it's unlikely we will return unless we hear of changes.