July 2023 update: The Love Tilly Group’s (Ragazzi, La Salut, Love, Tilly Devine and Dear Sainte Éloise) gorgeous Italian trattoria Palazzo Salato has launched a $65 set menu available now for Saturday lunch only. The stellar prix fixe menu comes with five of the Italian restaurant’s greatest hits – including snacks and two pastas – for less than the price of a bottle of wine at most Sydney restaurants. We love to see it.
Things will kick off with stracciatella with Cantabrian anchovies and pangrattato; grilled artichokes with green tomato pesto; and Palazzo ham with colatura hot sauce. Next, choose two pasta dishes from four options: mafaldine with spanner crab, uni butter, chilli and sea blight; spaghetti alla chitarra with bottarga and egg yolk; casarecce with boer goat ragu; or trottole amatriciana (a spicy tomato and pork pasta).
All good things come to an end, and this banging deal is available now for Saturday lunch only, until Saturday August 26. Get it while it’s hot.
*****
Read on for our review of Palazzo Salato from June 2023
Do you remember the old Pantene commercials featuring models with glossy and shiny hair the length of Rapunzel’s? Let’s face it, that level of shine was unrealistic to most – it was just trying to get us to buy the silicone-laced shampoo and conditioner. Which we did. And while we may never have reached Pantene-level strands, boy did we lust over that gloss.
It’s a Wednesday evening when we visit Palazzo Salato, the sprawling new Italian restaurant and bar from the Love Tilly Group, for the second time. And sure, we didn’t imagine we'd be recalling television commercials circa 2005 while dining here. But that's exactly what comes to mind when a beautiful plate of scarpinocc (a type of pasta) with Andean sunrise potatoes is placed in front of us looking all shiny, glossy and downright irresistible.
Originating from northern Italy, scarpinocc is named after its shoe-like appearance, but we think it looks more like lollies in wrappers. Inside, we taste the smooth and creamy potato, just like the perfect mash you get at fancy restaurants. Drops of sharp balsamic vinegar do an excellent job of cutting through the buttery, well-seasoned sauce, and it’s topped with shavings of parmigiano reggiano. It’s a joyous, close-your-eyes kinda dish, and if we had a bigger spoon we reckon we could have finished it all in three mouthfuls.
Seating 120 guests, Palazzo Salato is by far the most ambitious restaurant from the Love, Tilly Group, who also has Ragazzi, La Salut, Love, Tilly Devine and Dear Sainte Éloise under its belt. Found on Clarence Street in an 1860's building, the dining room looks grand, with its arched windows, a retro stool-lined bar, and brown leather and mustard velvet booths.
Wine bottles are everywhere, native banksias are dotted around, tables are marble-topped, and there’s a general sense of ease in the room, with jazz combining nicely with the clinking of glassware. We aren’t sure the hanging materials on the right wall look cohesive in the space, though Louis Wayling’s striking custom mural above the bar – bursting with colourful crustaceans and Spritzes – looks every bit like the Italian dream.
Once ordered, we’re greeted with some crisp-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside sourdough with a robust olive oil – and we will never say no to free bread. A starter of Palazzo ham is drizzled with a colatura hot sauce made from fermented chillies and, instead of the usual anchovies, Korean tuna-infused soy sauce. It’s vibrant and punchy and pairs well with the ham that tastes like the slices you get on Christmas. A plate of artichokes is a stand-out, the green vegetables tender, charred and dressed in a pesto trapanese with roasted cherry tomatoes that tastes sweet, nutty and salty. Meanwhile, meaty Cantabrian anchovies, which have knock-out levels of salt and umami, are balanced with creamy and oozing stracciatella, and crunches of golden pangrattato, resulting in a tasty non-wallflower snack.
We pair this with a glass of Gentle Folk soft chilled red – a blend of gamay, sangiovese, syrah and merlot – from Adelaide Hills, plucked from the 600-strong encyclopaedia-like wine list, which favours drops from all over Italy and France.
There are a bunch of mains on the menu, including a fresh fish of the day with hazelnut, capers and preserved lemon; a spatchcock with white bean and chillies; and a whooping 850-gram Rangers Valley rib-eye. But our pants are unzipped and we came here for one thing and one thing only: pasta.
Group executive chef Scott McComas-Williams, alongside executive chef Alex Major (the former head chef at Ragazzi) and new head chef Vincenzo Romeo (formerly Casoni) are heading up the kitchen, and, similar to Ragazzi, they place an emphasis on house-made regional pasta shapes. A bowl of spaghetti alla chitarra comes with a canary-yellow egg yolk and salty bottarga; the tubes coated in a rich and luscious sauce. And a cracking bowl of mafaldine is tangled with sweet spanner crab; the ribbon-shaped pasta the perfect vessel for the uni butter, a warm lick of chilli, and pops of salty sea blight. We hear on the grapevine that the casarecce with boer goat ragu is a slam-dunk, but that will need to wait until next time.
Yes, there’s a fair amount of butter in the pastas, so lactose-free friends, come armed with your tablets. But my god are they good, perfectly seasoned, and irresistibly glossy. On the way out we glance back one more time at the buzzing space, and head on out into the cold, knowing we’ll be dreaming about Palazzo’s pasta tonight.