Il Cortile

Just had a feed at a newly discovered Italian restaurant in Balmain called Il Cortile. It was touch and go for a while as to whether we could go out, given the sniffles and all, but we blew our noses and cleared our throats and made a night of it.

Il Cortile is a bit of a strange "discovery", given that it is right next door to Circle, where I eat once a week. I have been walking past it for a year at least and have never noticed it. So much for making your presence felt!

J found the place during the week when she was doing a walkabout for her kiddies guide book. That involved going door to door to most businesses and trying to get them to sign up for entry in a book that she is publishing about kiddie friendly places in our area. Her work has already paid off, as Il Cortile was a great place to go.

For starters, it is just the right size. Not too big and not too small. There is a nice garden area out the front, but it was too windy tonight to sit there. There is also a nice little courtyard out the back with a fountain and some fish in it, but the place was too quiet for them to open it up. It has a great big fuck-off pizza oven - you could roast half an ox in it if required. It also has an open kitchen, which is great for those that want to see what is going on. Unfortunately, we were right next to it, and my back was to it, and I got pretty bloody hot as a result. However, that did not detract from the night.

The food was very good all round. The wine list looked good as well. I had a beer soaked pork belly on a "crumpet" of kumera and apple, and it was marvelous, swimming in a mushroom sauce. Magnificent. Better than most 5 star restaurants would do. Succulent, tasty and not too much of it.

Between everyone else, we also had a vegie stack (excellent), fish cakes (excellent), callamari rings (very good). The callamari rings came with a very nice little spicy tomato sauce which looked home made, and they didn't skimp on it.

For mains, I had a veal parmigana type thing (I don't think I can spell it). It was very simple, but very good. The best I have ever had. It was a bit of a tester dish - if they could do something that simple very well, then they could cook anything well. It is like testing a place with fish and chips - if you can't fry fish and chips properly, you should be in a different line of work.

The rest had a vegie pizza of some sort (so good, the uneaten half was taken home in a doggie bag), a steak with blue cheese sauce (it seemed to be wolfed down, so it couldn't have been too bad) and a salmon steak of some sort for the "fishy" vegetarian. There were no complaints. The plates were very bare at the end.

I could have called it quits after the main course, but we just had to try dessert. We shared two chocolate mousse between the six of us, and that was probably one too many. The rest of the food must have been very good as the only quibbles were about the mousse - it had been sitting in a display cabinet for a while and had developed a slightly rubbery skin. I didn't mind it at all. It was good mousse - not the best mousse (L'angelo does better), but it was good. Worth having again.

The service was quite good and the staff were more than happy for the little monkey to run around the place causing non-destructive havoc. The nice thing is that it had good atmosphere - Monkey visited most of the tables around us and charmed the pants of the other patrons. One bloke was so impressed at how much fun we were having, he came past for a chat and gave us $2! Unbelievable.

I'm definitely going back. We had a short yarn with the owner, Christine, who informed us that the place had been going for about 10 years and her and her daughter had owned it for a year or two. The do breakfast on Sundays, so we are going back after Christmas for a morning feed.

The entrees were all around the $14 mark and the mains around $18. The pizzas were all about $15 - an absolute bargain for the quality. Dessert was $10, with fancy desserts going for $14.50.

I'd class it as a better than average place with lower than average pricing. The food was simple, but of great taste and quality.

Big thumbs up.