Church St Enoteca
527 Church St, Richmond
(03) 9428 7898

Italian Regional Dinner- Calabria

I’ve been to Church St Enoteca once and have been extremely impressed how passionate they are about their food and wine and have been itching to go back ever since.  Finally, my opportunity came.  Church St Enoteca decided to hold a series of Italian Regional Dinners, the second one featuring cuisine and wine from Calabria, in the South of Italy.

Our table of 6 was warmly greeted with a glass of sparkling wine Proseco Marca Oro Extra Dry, Valdo.  The wine is not really dry and it has a very smooth taste to it which I love.   They also serve us Raw Yellowfin Tuna, fennel and bottarga on arrival.  The tuna is really fresh and the crunchy fennel and salty bottarga complements it well.  I couldn’t help but grab seconds when they offered.  This is what I like about Church St Enoteca also, their generosity means wine gets topped up and they make sure that you don’t ever leave feeling hungry.

Our first course is a selection of house prepared capocollo and Calabrian Salami.  The chef actually came out and talk about the dish, because he’s actually air cured the capocollo himself, and it was the first time it’s ever been presented to guests (he did joked that we shouldn’t get food poisoning from that dish, maybe from other food but not that dish!).  We all agreed the capocollo the best also, it has really nice, subtle flavours.  I just wish that there’s more cos everyone love that dish so much.  The salami are nicely spiced also.

The accompanying wine is the 2008 DOC Ippolito 1845 Greco Bianco, Calabria.  A few of us thought that this wine is too subtle for a strong flavoured dish such as salami, but I quite like it on it’s own because it’s slightly sweet and it’s quite fragrant.  Please note:  I am not a wine drinker, but because Church St Enoteca is featuring wines especially from Calabria I thought it’s quite special.

Next course- Sagne Chine which happens to be Hubby’s favourite- LASAGNE (somehow I think I should call my Hubby Mr Garfield instead…).  Oh my god, although everyone can make lasagne, this lasagne is SERIOUSLY GOOD.  This lasagne is layered with pork, articoke, mozzarella and peas and I think secretly, the six of us could happily chow our way through another platter of this ( I actually did ask but I think the guy thought I was joking )

Accompanying wine: 2006 IGT Ippolito 1845, Gaglioppo & Cabernet, Sauvignon, Calabria.  I wonder whether Hubby will be forcing me to go to Calabria for our honeymoon, as he loved this wine.  It was really good with lasagne.

Our third course was Swordfish braised with potatoes, capers, anchovies, tomatoes and peppers. I like this dish least, but that’s only because I like a firmer type of fish, but otherwise the fish is really fresh and everyone enjoyed digging into this hearty dish.

Dolci is Chinulille- fried sweet ravioli filled with chocolate, chestnuts, candied fruit and nougat.  When I saw “ravioli” and “dessert” in one sentence I had the nightmarish flashback of the night in Society, where we had this awful chocolate ravioli dessert.  But this, this thing is SENSATIONAL.  This ravioli pasta is very thin and cripsy, I really love the candied fruit which gives an extra zing to it.  The chocolate dipping sauce is luxurious and silky, but not too sweet.  It was a great end to the dinner but to take it right over the edge they served us this Bergamino, a Bergamont liqueur.  Just one sip burns your throat and sent my eyeballs to the back of my head and back in 0.003 secs.  Phwaor it was strong.  Apparently it’s a very very rare liqueur, so we gingerly drank a few more sips before surrendering.

The verdict?  4 course dinner with wine for $75, with this quality type of food is certainly value for money, so I booked us to the next one- Liguria.  Nom Nom Nom!