Bar Idda is a Sicilian restaurant that took over 132 Lygon St from Rumi, back in June. (Incidentally I’m visiting Rumi in its new digs this Friday, so stay tuned.) It’s a tiny little rustic space with tables wedged in tightly… so tightly, in fact, that not long after sitting down with a glass of prosecco, an irate diner made a noisy exit by knocking over my glass with her bum. (Rather than apologising for smashing the glass and its contents all over our table, she yelled at me “the tables are TOO CLOSE TOGETHER!!”. Grumpy cow.)
Anyway, once the staff had apologised profusely for Mrs Grumpy, mopped up the broken glass from the table and fetched me a new drink, we got to eating. The menu is loosely arranged into small sharing dishes or starters ($7-$10.50), slightly larger mains ($14-$23.50), and side dishes ($6-$10).
We started with the marinated fried sardines and salami with smoked cheese:
Really really simple, but nicely done. I liked the sardines especially.
Next, the mains. These were very authentically Italian, in that your main dish will be just the meat alone on a plate – you do need to order sides. We had the pistachio crumbed lamb cutlets:
and the “Iaddini Nuri” – chicken braised with bitter chocolate, fennel seeds and cloves:
and the pork and fennel sausage:
Mmm… that’s a turdy looking sausage. Fortunately it tasted a lot better than it looks! It was very fennel-y though – lots of fennel seeds all the way through – possibly a few too many in my opinion.
The lamb cutlets were nicely cooked, and tasty, but nothing spectacular. The chicken was the most interesting of the three mains; the spiced chocolate sauce is the sort of flavour that I would usually associate with South American cuisine, rather than Italian. Mind you, I say “interesting”, not mindblowing. Now that I’ve tried it, I’d order something different next time.
For side dishes, we had the “frittedda” – broad beans, asparagus and peas tossed with crunchy breadcrumbs:
and the smoky red peppers with mint:
Looooved the frittedda – such a yummy clean fresh-tasting spring dish. To think I used to hate broad beans when I was a kid! We didn’t love the peppers so much though – Mull announced that they were “cold hot food”, meaning that it was a dish that would have tasted better if it was served warm. I am inclined to agree.
I was still a bit peckish after all this – the dishes are small-ish, and I’d walked home from work and then from home to Lygon St, so I’d worked up quite the appetite. Decided to go for dessert instead of more savouries.
The dessert menu is pretty limited – they just have cassata, affogato, cannoli, biscotti and gelato. I went for the chocolate cannoli. Which turned out to be The Best Cannoli I Ever Had.
OK, so it doesn’t look that exciting in the photo. But trust me, it was awesome. The custardy filling was chocolatey without being too rich, and the pastry casing was just the right thickness to resist my bite for just a moment… before cracking open to ooze chocolatey goodness everywhere… droooooool. In fact it was so good I had to order another one. Oops.
Drinks! I forgot the drinks. The wine list is very short, and mostly Italian. We had a half litre of the house red and it was passable. They also make some fun Italian aperitif cocktails – the boys both had a Sicilian Spritzer (with Rosso Antico, Cinzano Bianco and gassosa). Bit of a girly drink but the perfect thing for a Friday afternoon before dinner.
The meal came to about $150 for the three of us, including drinks. So pretty good value for money. The tables are indeed, as Mrs Grumpy pointed out, very close together, and it can get quite noisy in there.
All in all I’d say Bar Idda is a bit overhyped for what it is. It’s authentic Italian, but very low key. Don’t go there expecting it to rock your world, but for a nice casual meal I’d certainly recommend it.
KATE
