Osteria dei Poeti

By Franz Scheurer

It looks and smells like an Osteria in Venice, the only thing missing is the haze of cigarette smoke. It’s full, it’s noisy, and it’s unmistakably Italian. Warm tones, lots of wood, funky light fittings, busy wait staff and serious lack of space between tables, all contribute to an atmosphere of a purpose built eatery. The menu promises much. It seems someone is serious about serving regional dishes the way they were intended, even to the extent of offering ancient Roman dishes.

We ordered a couple of Antipasti to give us time to make up our mind and narrow down the choice of dishes to a manageable quantity. Keeping the traditionalist approach in mind, we ordered the ‘Pasta e fagioli con maltagliati’, described as a bean and vegetable soup with egg pasta. I’ve had this dish before in Italy and a particularly good version cooked by Stefano di Pieri in Mildura, but in both cases it was quite thick, closer to a casserole than a soup. The Osteria dei Poeti version was far more soup-like with less beans and pasta than I’m used to, and it lacked salt. Next we ate the ‘Trenette alla genovese’, ribbon pasta with potatoes, green beans and Genovese basil pesto. This is another traditional dish with the beans, potato and pasta cooked together then dressed with pesto. Unfortunately the version here was a pasta dish with added (almost raw) beans and roasted potatoes. If you’re going to honour tradition, then I feel it’s important to get it right. An entrée of egg scroll pasta with veal and chicken liver showed off great pasta with dry and totally unnecessary strips of veal and a few small dice of excellent chicken livers. Leave the veal out, be more generous with the livers and you’d have a great dish. We couldn’t resist ordering one of the ancient Roman dishes, the ‘Haedum sive agnum particum’, boned lamb cooked in prunes, anchovy, basil, tarragon and onions, accompanied by a herbed barley risotto. This was certainly an interesting dish, showing classic sweet/sour contrasts but I can’t help feeling that it’s a good thing that Italian cuisine has evolved beyond Ancient Roman cooking. The two desserts we tried, cannoli with a ricotta and chocolate filling and a slice of tiramisu, were both competent and presented well.

The food in this Osteria is certainly not bad, but it doesn’t rock, either. There is a reasonable gap between what I think they’re aiming for (given the way the menu reads) and what they achieve. Service is friendly and helpful but not observant at all and timing really sucked. We were lucky to be a group of four having a great conversation and therefore able to more or less overlook the enormous gaps between courses, but even this didn’t make it easy to sit in front of our empty plates for 28 minutes before they were cleared. Value for money is ok for the food, and is excellent for wine. They offer a few really terrific Italian wines at very reasonable prices.

Score: 5.5/10

For more information or bookings:

Osteria dei Poeti

73 Glebe Point Road

Glebe

Tel.: 02 9571 8955