There are certain people that you meet in your professional life that go on to become friends, beyond the 9-5pm (or let's face it 7pm) time. When I first met The Second Wife at an event she invited me to, I was instantly taken by her aura. She is a PR legend whom I would follow to the ends of the earth and we've become friends outside of the workplace. When she invited me to lunch for my birthday, I squealed with delight. For I was getting to have lunch with a fabulous person but also one with fabulous taste.
We take a seat in this very black Italian eatery in Surry Hills. Called Vini: Enoteca, Italian Wine food, (Enoteca meaning wine repository) everything is sleek and black and of course the focus here is on the wines with a huge blackboard full of various types of wines (many available by the glass) with a small but very good selection of food. We share an entree of the salmon carpaccio and we also order the gnocchi and ravioli. The atmosphere is noisy and buzzy. The food is said to change often - in fact daily, and is always good whatever you order.
To start, there are some poppyseed encrusted breadsticks and delicious black and green olives. Before we can finish these (ok there was a lot of talking in between), we receive our entree.
The salmon carpaccio is delicious, thinly sliced with some peppered creme fraiche and marjoram and sweet roasted beetroot and is a generous serve.
The ravioli arrives, filled with duck meat and it's gorgeous. The duck inside is soft like a ragu and the overall effect is a delicious richness with a crispy bacon on top. I love the aroma of rosemary with this and the liberally sprinkled spikes throughout.
The brilliant handmade gnocchi is light and spongy with small pieces of salt cod dotted here and there, some sweet peppers and chives to finish. The sauce is one where you just wish you had some bread to soak it up, it's so good. The Second Wife has again proven her prowess at restaurant picking!
Vini
3/118 Devonshire St
Surry Hills, NSW
Tel: +61 (02) 9698 5131
No bookings
http://www.vini.com.au
Reader Comments
Loading comments...Add Comment