A Tavola

A Tavola

348 Victoria St
Darlinghurst

Sydney

NSW 2010
Phone: (02) 9331 7871

Meal : 22 May 2009

One of the advantages of working partly from home is the food flexibility. Obviously, this is also one of the disadvantages, as the temptations are greater as well...

This year the Sydney Tarts watchnuts are celebrating 5 years of their weekly coffee & lemon tart meetings. I’ve only been a part of this group for a couple of years, but along with some of the others, including onomatopia, we are planning a GTG celebration and perhaps a momento of some sort.

Ever open to the task of investigating dining options, I decided to do a solo recon mission to A Tavola to see whether it might be a suitable location. Two of the group had already been there for dinner and enjoyed it, but were unsure as to whether it would meet our particular needs (e.g. good lighting for watch photos LOL).

Despite being on a self imposed diet of sorts, I decided that I could justify a larger-than-usual lunch if I followed it up by not eating dinner ;) so abandoning my work for a little while, I headed up to Victoria St. Fortunately for me, it was a Friday, as they are only open for lunch on Fridays for some reason.

One thing that the others who had been there did not mention was that there is a courtyard there, but it seems that they didn’t know.

Unfortunately, I subsequently discovered that with our numbers, we’d not be able to book the entire courtyard unless we satisfied a “minimum spend” of an amount which would be impossible for us to meet. However, a large table there is still under consideration at the moment.....

One of the things that I’d read about was the quality of the house made foccacia with chilli oil that is served to diners as they are seated.

What can I say except to wish that I’d been given more? In going to the courtyard area, I had passed the happy sight of the Chef making A Tavola’s pasta on the big marble communal table inside, the quiet hum of the busy kitchen, and the freshly made foccacia just waiting to you.

The menu is rather minimalist; I’d say that the blackboard menu is more the “menu” than the dozen odd items listed on the actual physical one. I decided to go with a pasta dish of course, and to go with one of the non blackboard items, the Sigarette al Ragu ($22).

The photo doesn’t do justice to the size of the dish, which was bigger than I had expected. Large, honest-to-goodness and full of comforting goodness, this is the sort of ragu that I could happily eat regularly. In fact I enjoyed the ragu so much that when I next go there, I will be torn between ordering it again, and trying something new..... [AP]