Restaurant Month 3: Gusto

Third and final Restaurant Month dinner. This time it's Italian; my favorite cuisine. Accompanied by my baker and chef friend, Miss Shell for dinner on a work night (read about our cafe crawl shenanigans here, a fried Chinese cake, or a spontaneous Whoopie Pie trip).

Gusto is inside the Skycity Grand Hotel on Federal Street. And by grand, I mean GRAND. Probably the fanciest restaurant I've been to in terms of decor and ambience (Odettes comes next). It was opened by chef Sean Connolly, who also opened The Grill right next door. Just incase we dismissed that name when we came in,  a bottle of olive oil on the tables with his name on reminded us that he's a prominent figure in the cuisine world.

$40 for 2 courses, which was actually 6 dishes for $40. Great value! All the photos were shared serving size between the two of us.

First course A (yes this was just one of 3 parts to the first course) Garlic, rosemary pizzetta with housemade ricotta, honey, pine nuts.

Loved it.
When the pizzetta arrived, it came in a little pizza box and I was confused; did we order to takeaway
And I wasn't expecting the ricotta to look like dessert; did we order a cake?
But the waiter made known to us the dishes as he placed it infront of us and then I could not wait to taste it.

The first bite of the pizzetta got us going "mmmm" "ahhhh" and "!!!!" very audibly.
Pictured above is the ricotta whose honey lent us its sweetness to contrast with the salty garlic pizzetta. I absolutely loved the crunch of the pine nuts along with the smooth cream-cheese-like texture of the ricotta.

It was a perfect balance of sweet and salty and smooth and crunchy. An absolute winner.
Unfortunately this was the only dish that was beyond amazing.

First course B Mozzarella, fennel, celery, walnuts
Excellent presentation. On the bottom of the stack is mozzarella followed by everything that tasted too sour, too much lemon.

First course C Rigatoni beef, lamb, tomato ragu, basil
A little while later came the final dish of the first course. Something more familiar, home-y and hearty.
For an Italian restaurant, it was surprising and disappointing to receive a pasta dish 1 minute premature of al-dente. Both Miss Shell and I cook pasta often, so it was the first thing we noticed when we took a bite.

Everything else was flavoursome though, just the slightly undercooked pasta that overshadowed it all.
After a carb-loaded first course, we felt quite full and there was hardly a break before the second course.

Second course Grilled snapper, pistachio, capers, preserved lemon, chilli. Beef brisket and salsa verde. Served with rocket, pear, parmesan salad.

After a delectable beef brisket at The Culpeper the previous week, I was excited when this arrived, looking tender and smoky. While it did have a great taste and texture, it was still nowhere near as good as The Culpeper's . Would it have been better with a pour-over sauce? We think so.
I also noticed this course is devoid of carbs, not that we minded, we were very full at this point.

Miss Shell did manage to eat the snapper before she retired from eating and found it fresh and not dry at all. I'm no seafood eater, so I take her word for it when she said a lot of places can tend to overcook snapper. She liked this one!

In the middle of it, she started telling me about the amazing dessert she had last time she came for a friend's birthday. I thought why not order dessert, it sounded exquisitely unique and because I won't return here anytime soon; the regular menu is beyond a regular girls' budget.

Gusto cappuccino, coffee custard, frangelico zabaglione $15
Don't judge this by its looks!

Get your spoon and dig in, crack the layer open to reveal the creme brulee that is underneath the cappuccino foam.

I've never seen, nor tasted, anything quite like it. The custard was cool but the milk foam on top was warm and my mouth was confused. But definitely order this if you're a coffee lover!

Bottom line: 

Fantastic value for money; 6 dishes for $40 at a very formal restaurant. Looking at their usual menu, the snapper and beef brisket priced in the high $30s.

Presentation was average (apart from the mozzarella and fennel dish; which was my expectation from a restaurant like this).

Glad I came, now I can say I've been to Gusto!

Can't wait for Restaurant Month 2017.

Signed,

Elisa