La Casa Ristorante

Restaurant Review by Franz Scheurer

24^th September 2010

La Casa, a new family restaurant in Russell Lea (between Drummoyne and Five Dock), caters for lovers of Italian fare and handles kids better than most. It’s bedlam in there if you go early (they open at 5pm) as the noise levels are high and the enjoyment rates even higher. It’s uncanny how attractive kids can look when their faces are smeared with tomato and dusted with flour.

They serve superb pasta, steak and pizzas - the perfect recipe for success in this neck of the woods. Nothing fancy but nothing trite. From the Primi section we order the ‘Polpette della Mamma’ Mamma’s original style meatballs ($14) served with wood-fired bread - the best meatballs in this town. Mind you, the serving is big enough to feed the Roman army and you’d better be hungry as there is a lot more to try. Our pasta is the ‘Penne Arrabiata’, penne with a spicy Napoletana sauce ($16) and it certainly has a decent chilli kick! They use Rummo pasta and cook it perfectly al dente. The pasta holds up until the very last morsel is consumed and it’s great to see a classic pasta dish being cooked and served in the traditional way. For mains we try the ‘Patata Pizza’ with mozzarella, potato, sausage & rosemary ($19) but ask for it without sausage. What can I say? Heaven! Beautiful textural contrasts of crunchy and gooey and again, this is the best potato pizza in Sydney. I know this is a big call – but don’t think it needs the sausage. We also nibbled on a ‘Diavola Pizza’ with tomato, mozzarella & hot salami ($17). Great - but not as good as the potato pizza and again, you certainly don’t need chilli on the side. The next course is a perfectly medium rare sirloin steak (300g certified black Angus150 days Grain fed beef Marble Score 2+ at $33) with hot mayonnaise, butter and tarragon (the Italian translation for Béarnaise) and these guys know how to buy terrific meat and how to cook it. Sirloin is not as easy to cook as fillet, Scotch or rib eye and they do it perfectly. A couple of glasses of 2007 Torre Varano, Aglianico from Campania ($29) complemented the food perfectly.

As you might have guessed, with the generosity of the serves, we had absolutely no room left for dessert, but thankfully, that dessert stomach always seems to kick in and we tried the house-made ‘Tartaletta di frangipane con composta di frutta’, a frangipane and marmalade tart served with vanilla ice cream ($12). It’s a very good dessert, simple and not too sweet. A wonderful Torbata grappa helped digest!

This restaurant is the dream of Carmel Ruggeri, her husband Smiley and brother Tony. Carmel and Tony’s Papa also worked tirelessly painting and doing whatever handiwork was around - this is a real family affair. The hospitality may be a little overwhelming to non-Italians but it takes mere minutes to get used to it and appreciate it. The customer really is king here. Carmel also established a real presence on social network Twitter long before they opened the restaurant and accomplished something unseen before: she was already ‘pen pals’ with a large amount of her clientele and reviewers. In other words to welcome people you know is a lot less scary than dealing with a crowd of strangers.

Did I like it? Absolutely

Would I go back? Yes, yes, yes

Value for money: exceptional

What I did not like: it’s not in my neighbourhood

Noise: 96 db

Score: 7/10

For more information or bookings:

La Casa Ristorante

271 Lyons Road

Russell Lea

Tel.: 02 9712 3882

Web: http://www.lacasaristorante.com.au/