Making Pizza
Ahhh Mosman, my old home. How I have missed you! Sure now I live closer to the city but there’s something to be said about visiting the familiar. Seeing the chic pony tailed mums in their pale pink polo shirts swinging their keys to the white BMW 4WD while photogenic children in designer duds follow them asking for a babycino. Tonight I’m dining at Fourth Village Providores – what is by day an upmarket store with fresh produce, deli goods and a cafe. At night, they roll back all of the displays and open it up to be a restaurant. Owned by Peter and Annette Quattroville and run with their four sons it appears to be a hit with Mosmanites as tonight it’s packed. Anne-Maree has gathered a bunch of like minded food lovers here tonight.
Antipasto platters
Antipasto for 7 (two of the deli plates plus a plate of octopus and roasted capsicum $80)
Our two antipasto plates are brought out quickly and each one is elevated on a metal hoist so that everyone can reach the food. On each plate is a selection of salami, proscuitto, mortadella, coppa, pieces of roasted beetroot, grilled zucchini, grilled eggplant and a bowl of mixed olives. Of course my favourites are always going to be the proscuitto and salami and I make fast work of it. There’s also cold, tender squid salad and a plate of grilled sweet, red capsicum.
The Cheese Room
Cheeese!
In between food must be a bit of shopping (don’t you just love a shop-slash-restaurant?). I must visit the cheese room which I do with Leanne the owner and baker of Sweet Infinity bakery. She’s a cheese hobbyist and she picks up cheese after cheese showing me the different properties and qualities. She tells me that Lynne Tietzel from Australia On a Plate taught her that a good cheddar sucks the moisture out of your mouth and leaves the flavour behind. She also confirms that the best part of a cheese wheel is the centre and that in Italy, Italian mamas bid for the centre pieces at the markets. The centre pieces are never given to younger ladies as it’s a sign of respect to the older generation.
Petit Munster cheese which is made by monks (Munster is Latin for Monastery)
Farfalle con bresaola, fichi, gorgonzola e barbabietole $25
I asked for a recommendation from Sam, one of the four sons who is working tonight and he recommended this dish. It is a bow tie pasta with beetroot. “Do you like gorgonzola?” he asks me. “I love it” I answer firmly. What I didn’t know that along with gorgonzola would be fresh figs which happen to be what I consider heaven in a mouthful and the pasta is sweet with the figs and beetroot. It could be considered too sweet for some but I like the way that it balances the richness of the gorgonzola and the slight saltiness of the breseaola (cured beef). And serves are huge – so huge that I take some home in a takeaway container unable to let it go to waste. I spy the other large table next to us and the waiter brings them a stack of eight takeaway containers with what they couldn’t finish. Mental note: take Mr NQN here!
Linguine Con Gli Scampi $27
I try some of Claire’s pasta and it’s deliciously spicy with a tomato based sauce and the linguine cooked to a perfect al dente texture.
Ortolana Pizza $20
This pizza made using their wood fired oven is topped with grilled eggplant, zucchini, sundried tomato, stracchino cheese and fresh basil. It’s good, with a nice crust and Andrea and his girlfriend Elana both from Tuscany in Italy (I have to ask them “Why would anyone move from Tuscany?!”) say that it is very close to what they get back home.
Nobile Pizza $24
I try some of Elana’s Nobile pizza which she has changed slightly so that the gorgonzola is replaced with the mascarpone which actually goes very well with the salty speck. It’s drizzled with a light touch of truffle oil which isn’t too strong.
Tagliata d’agnello $29
I try some of Anne-Maree’s grilled and marinated lamb loin on a bed of rocket and I dip it into the mint aioli. It’s tasty with the flavour penetrating through the meat and the mint aioli gives it a lift.
Tortini di Mare $18 (prawns and whitebait fritters)
Fegato d’anatra con cipalla fondente e polenta $18 (foie gras and polenta)
Gelato: strawberry and coconut $7
We’re all schvitizing in here with the heat so when I see Claire’s gelato I immediately order one. They have a few different flavours but I order strawberry and coconut. The serve is enormous and no matter how hard I try, I can’t make a dent in it and I sadly watch it pool into a white and pink mess before my eyes lamenting that this can’t be given to my ice cream monster Mr NQN.
We finish off with a plate of Royce Chocolate from Japan which Anne-Maree has kindly brought back from her trip overseas. They’re buttery and sublime and absolutely melt in the mouth…
So tell me Dear Reader, do you often ask for a doggie bag when you eat out?
Fourth Village Providores
5A Vista Street, Mosman NSW
Tel: +61 (02) 9960 7162
Breakfast: 7:00am till 11:30am 7 days a week
Lunch: 12:00pm till 3:00pm 7 days a week
Coffee & Cake: 3:00pm till 5:00pm 7 days a week
Dinner: Thursday till Sunday Booking are essential for 6:00pm or 7:30 seatings
Market:
Open 7:00pm till 7:00pm Monday to Friday
7:00pm till 6:00pm Saturday & Sunday
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50 Comments | Add your own
I love doggie bags – when I was in Morocco with a half Vietnamese friend we joked it was our Asian genes that compelled us not to waste anything and we always had a snack to hand. Love the “white mould” sign!
I love Royce chocolate!!! My favorite is their nama-choco which you’re supposed to keep refrigerated and it’s soo melt in your mouth smooth and buttery. Mmm wish I could have some now
Oh I love this place!Especially the cheese room is just perfect, I could spend hours there just tasting different cheeses!
Doggy bag? I never need one…I never have problems finishing my meal!
“Prosciutto”, doll.
Wow, fantastic photos, I love this sort of food. The cheese room looks great – reminiscent of the one at Simon Johnson. Do I often ask for a doggie bag? Hey, I’m Chinese..
A cheese room? I am THERE! The pizzas do look fabulous as is the prawn/whitebait fritters. This is on my list – thank you! xx
I always ask for a doggie bag, especially in a place like this where the food is so lovely. I’ll actually order more than I can eat, just so I can have leftovers to take to the office the next day.
Gorgeous post, love the photos…
I love Royce chocolates. Maybe we were part of the designer dud (as if!) beautiful children just sliding out of Mercedes and BMWs back in high school, but that’s pretty much what we ate all the time. It was THAT popular.
If there’s octopus, sign me up. They’re a party in my mouth. And yay to the best bits in cheese wheels. That’s when my housemate will be happy to pull the age card. x
That cheese room = my kind of heaven!!!!! My credit crad would take a hefty hit if I visited that is for sure
If I hadn’t had pizza Sunday, I’d be craving it so bad right now…
Looks like my kind of place for a Sunday lunch and I can ‘food shop’ at the same time, Bonus!
I haven’t seen Munster cheese in Australia before, I’m so going to definitely make a bee-line for it. I had my first taste of this particular cheese while holidaying in California many years ago. I hunted around for it on my return and was never able to find any, so I gave up.
Cheese room….drool just leave me in there for a while
Doggie bags, Yes if eating with family and at a family restaurant but No if fine dining!
I can’t wait to get to Australia so I can finally visit all these splendid places you’re always writing about.
Doggie bag? I think it’s a compliment to the chef/ restaurant, because you just don’t want to waste any of that delicious meal! (I think everybody knows the dog doesn’t really get to eat it
I can just see those mums… my photogenic children have baby coffee and biscotti most mornings.
I can hardly stand it! This looks divine. Although I must admit I was drooling when I saw the plate of octopus!
And that cheese! Oh my.
That cheese room is amazing. OMG that is my heaven right there. Stinky stinky cheese yummmm
WoW!! Hungry for some pizza right this minute! Making me hungry!!
Oooooooooh I’m a sucker for Italian food!
This looks amazing!
The cheese room looks like heaven!
I need to go there – STAT!
Everything looks incredible, Lorraine! I’m dying for that farfalle dish — I think I need to try to recreate that!
Snaps like these make me regret my vegetarian status Loved the cheese room snaps. But the very first snap caught my attention, as the pizza base is being formed, pasta dish next to it pops in as if to say “hey me here too!!”, as if naughty one didn’t want to skip spotlight
And ofcourse I always (mostly) ask for doggie bag. Cheers
A doggie bag – of course. I could not let any good food go to waste. Blasphemy!!
OMG that cheese room. That cheese room! I’d pull up a chair and sample every one of them. The scampi linguine looks to-die-for and the pizza bases are just like they should be. What a gorgeous post!
Your last shots were incredible! Felt like jumping in a plane and going there! Sounds like a great experience espe the cheese shopping part!
Can I live in that cheese room? Seriously! I would be in total heaven there. Just hand me a small knife and I’d be all set.
The pasta looks delicious!
Oh if you’re in the vicinity of Mosman again, try House of Teppanyaki which is owned by one of my best friend’s Dad. The likes of Justine from MasterChef and John Eales have been recent patrons
I have to stop reading your blog so early in the day..the result is I end up famished and eat anything that is not nailed down!!
I am deeply in love with the pizza pictured..sighs.
I seriously need to take an excursion to Mosman!!!
It’s hard not having much money, nor available transport! 
Oh well, one day!!
I think I’m going to have to start a journal of places I want to visit…don’t you have one of those, Lorraine?
Lovely place but not happy with North Shore Coffee Morning crowd.
#nscm
Yes this place is a great lunch place. Fantastic pizza – fabulous pasta! I hate it when you ask for a doggie bag and a restaurant won’t do it for you – I always carry a plastic bag in my pocket (no good for wet sauces unfortunately) but better than nothing. Hehehe
Oooh – Royce Nama chocolates! I love and adore them – if only I could get them in Australia.
That foie gras looks superb. I am so immensely jealous right now. My new mission (until I become distracted) is to find myself a cheese room. Perhaps with a wine cellar nearby.
Oh my god, you had me at cheese room but the bow-tie pasta sounds so amazing I want to go there now!
Hehe I’m still working up the courage to doggy-bag in places other than Asian restaurants.
Ah, just seeing the cheese room makes me smile. Doggie bag? No problem, if it means I get to actually finish my meal rather than racing out the door chasing kids, its a good thing. That pizza looked delicious!
I thought I wasn’t hungry. But after reading your post, my stomach growled several times. No joke. I blame you, Lorraine, with you tantalizing pictures and delightful descriptions!
Love a doggy bag (hate wasting food) and love fourth village. The four sons are so flirty and the food is great. It’s just up the road from my parents so a visit is usually compulsory. On my last visit my doggy bag had pizza and ricotta cake – separately- which I brought all the way back to wagga.
Lorraine, could I please sell you my soul for thr rest of your fig and gorgonzola pasta? Kthnxbai.
I can’t remember the last time I asked for a doggie bag – I thought there’d been some ban on letting people take food home, actually! By the by, what was their reason for leaving Tuscany??
Oh divine…I LOVE a shop/slash restaurant…we don’t really have them in Perth…wanna start a business??
Sadly, quite a few establishments will no longer do doggie bags due to the risk of food sitting at unsafe temperatures for too long. If there is any illness who’s to say if it occurred because of the restaurant or the baggie? Again it sounds ridiculous, but reputations are hard won, easily lost. I say ‘buyer beware’ and don’t waste a thing!
Every word, every description, every letter,every pic,is brilliantly fantastic…loved them all.
Well a doggie bag,yeah sure, infact , a few chefs think that if havent finished the whole thing,u didn love it, so am more than thrilled to tell them, how muc i did enjoy ,but am way too full now and would love to enjoy the rest the next day,u’ll promptly have a doggie bag on ur table,well packed and honestly it makes sense ,then throwing out all the delicious food.
BdW, we have no doggie too:-)))))))
Mmmm, so much yummy cheese! And that scampi pasta looks so scrumptious!
Ooh this looks good! I love the sound of the beetroot, gorgonzolla and fig pasta. Any ideas how they made it? Those flavours work so well together (last night I made a similar flavured pear and gorgonzolla pizza with olive oil and prociutto – so good).
Briony xx
OMG, I think I just want to move into that cheese room, just hand me a loaf of crusty sourdough and a book and I’m in heaven! The pastas look so delicious too!
oh wow it all looks delicious, I don’t live far away so see a trip there this weekend and making note of it for dinner!
corrie:)
this is some goooood-looking food! that farfalle dish stands out for me–so much creamy goodness.
Usually it’s the pictures of your baking that get me, but here you have outdown yourself in providing food porn for the masses. I don’t think that I could leave this restaurant without a doggiebag! I like the idea someone else had of purposely overordering so they had extras for the office the next day!
Everything looks really yummy and real food. It is quite seldom that we ask for a doggie bag. Too greedy!
So much nice comfort food ehre I almost slid off my seat. Oh god that cheese room!
I love the cheese room! How can life be anything but good when one has a cheese room?
I always have a doggie bag. I don’t eat my entire meal, ever, and we have chickens, who will eat absolutely anything.
Everything looks fantastic! I get a doggie bag when I’ve been to a restaurant that has food which is normally shared – like Thai, Indian or some Italian food.
Soo many tasty looking dishes here. I love the cheese room too.
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