Overview
- Signature Dishes: Risotto
- Opening Times & Days: Lunch – 12pm to 3pm (Mon to Fri); Dinner – 6pm to 9pm (Tue to Sat)
- Address: 28-30 Young Street, Moonee Ponds, Victoria, Australia
- Contact: +61 03 9372 9500
- Reservation: Yes
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Summary
Vicolo Cafe and Risotto Bar, located in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, is a lovely, family style restaurant that cooks great risottos and excellent desserts. This restaurant prides itself on its service and good food, and we can confirm this after dining here. If you’re heading here for dinner, leave some room for their desserts which are deliciously naughty.
Moonee Ponds Restaurants: Vicolo Cafe and Risotto Bar
If you’re looking for great Moonee Ponds restaurants, you’ve come to the right place. Melbourne’s first risotto bar, Vicolo Cafe and Risotto Bar is located near Puckle Street in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne. This is one of the best Moonee Ponds restaurants, which specialises in risottos since 2004. In addition to risottos, they also serve entrees, salads, pastas and desserts.
They have both lunch and dinner service from Monday to Saturday. While Vicolo is closed on Sunday, they do special private functions on Sunday in their function room. Set menus can be arranged upon request.
This was a family dinner with my parents and sister. This restaurant was chosen as one of our group members is gluten intolerant (cannot eat wheat, oats and many other grains). Vicolo is a member of the Coeliac Society, hence, a big part of their menu is gluten free.
Situated next to a Woolworths and a large car park, it is a great location for a quiet family meal in the suburbs. It has a relaxed family environment, with a big open floor and tables spread apart, providing a lot of room to move around freely. It is lovely in summer as the floor to ceiling glass doors and glass canopy above filter a lot of sunlight into the restaurant.
Service was excellent to say the least. From the moment we arrived till we left, every detail was attended to in the most professional manner. The waiters attended to our every need before we even thought about it.
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We started off with a bottle of chilled white wine – a 2012 Bella Riva King Valley Pinot Grigio Vermentino. It is from a De Bortoli family vineyard situated in King Valley, at the base of the Victorian snowfields, planted in 1994. A blend of Pinot Grigio and Vermentino, the wine was clear, crisp, aromatic, and an easy drinking white wine. This wine matched really well with the risottos.
Mains
For mains, we ordered Risotto Zucca, Risotto Salmone, Risotto Anatra and Paella.
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Risotto Zucca is a roast pumpkin, baby spinach and Parma ham risotto.
A rich and creamy risotto, it was served with grated pecorino cheese and freshly ground pepper on top. The pumpkin and spinach matched really well. There was nothing really special about the flavour of this dish; it was just well cooked and the combination of the ingredients went really well together.
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Risotto Salmone is a smoked salmon, rocket and mascapone risotto with lemon butter.
The combination of the rocket, smoked salmon and mascapone worked so well that I will try and make this at home. The flavours and textures in this dish complimented each other really well. Being in a risotto bar, we expected to have excellent risotto, with soft slightly sticky rice grains that absorbed the flavour of the ingredients, and that is exactly what we got.
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Risotto Anatra is a duck risotto made of braised duck, porcini mushrooms, caramelised onions, roast garlic, sage and pecorino.
This risotto was very rich, thick and creamy. The combination of all the ingredients gave this dish a lot of depth and flavour. Even though the dish had a lot of ingredients, one flavour stood out – the braised duck, which overpowered all other ingredients in this meal.
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The Paella came with chicken, chorizo, prawn and mussels.
The seafood was beautifully cooked and served with a good generous portion. This dish was made Spanish style with chorizo, onion and herbs, and, once sprinkled with the accompanying lemon wedges, tasted excellent. Vicolo regarded their paella as inauthentic, that is, not being an original Spanish paella recipe. We found the differences to be in the flavour of the chorizo and the paella in general. The flavour of the cured meat of the chorizo was not as strong as a Spanish chorizo, while the paella itself had more of a tomato and herb flavour, which we actually liked.
Desserts
We ended our night with desserts – Strawberry Panna Cotta, Chocolate Pudding and Lemon Tart. Vicolo really took pride in their desserts. All the desserts were well presented, had multiple elements to the dish, and looked as good as they tasted.
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Strawberry Panna Cotta was served with pink fairy floss, berry compote, berry reduction and topped with mint leaves.
The panna cotta was soft and had been infused superbly with strawberries. Personally, I am not a fan of fairy floss being served for dessert, but this item tied into this dish really well. It gave the dessert a different texture, and added sweetness and colour to the presentation. The berries were fresh and juicy, and the reduction had a lot of flavour – a combination of sweet and tart. A hint of mint gave the dessert an added dimension.
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The Chocolate Pudding was actually a ‘chocolate fondant’ which is a French dessert. It was topped with berries and served with vanilla ice cream.
The fondant was perfectly cooked – just cooked outside with beautiful soft runny chocolate filling. This was well complemented by the vanilla ice cream. Most of the time when we’ve ordered this dessert, we’ve get an overcooked cake with a small bit of chocolate sauce in the middle. Vicolo cooked this dessert just enough to get a set, spongy cake on the outside, but when we broke it with our spoon, the nice chocolate-y sauce poured out. We couldn’t have asked for a better dessert.
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Citrus Tart was a lemon tart served with cream and candied lime peel with a berry reduction on the side.This dessert was the winner for the entire table.
The tart had a firm crust without being solid, with a smooth filling flavoured with lemon. The candied lime peel was worth eating on its own. The highlight of this dish was eating the candied lime peel combined with the cream and tart. There were four different textures and flavours being mixed on our tongue, without any one flavour overpowering the other.
This is a lovely family restaurant and we enjoyed our evening here. Our meals were well cooked with fresh ingredients and lots of different flavours. Our evening was made even better with the splendid service this restaurant excels at, and their attention to every detail. We will surely revisit this restaurant the next time we feel like eating a good risotto.
