The Italian Kitchen Westfield Miranda
[Linkhttp://theitaliankitchenmiranda.com.au/ The Italian Kitchen] is a charming little restaurant nestled among the outdoor dining quarter in Miranda Westfield, that will allow you to experience the delights of authentic Italian food without having to leave the country.
I'd been hesitant to visit the establishment as I expected the authentic Italian menu to be quite rich and full of various cheeses. On perusing the menu, I was surprised to find that this wasn’t the case at all. In fact, the Italian ingredients are carefully balanced to provide customers with fantastic flavours, with a variety of options available from pasta to cured Italian meats.
Welcome to a slice of Italy.
The restaurant is located in the outdoor level two food quarter of the Westfield, by a big, beautiful oak tree. The oak, surrounded by a paved courtyard with a fountain creates some much needed ambiance by distracting from the busy main road nearby. Cute bistro table settings and awnings out the front, add to the authentic look, while the curved white leather booth seating inside really brings the design into the modern era.
Potato and pecorino perfection.
Keeping good things simple.
The appetisers, while seemingly expensive, are large enough they could serve as main course. As I visited The Italian Kitchen as part of a group, we choose the shoestring fries with grated percorino ($10) and an apple, prosciutto and lettuce salad ($17) for our appetisers. I was particularly drawn to the salad because of the fresh, summer flavours. I had anticipated a relatively modest portion of prosciutto due to the price of the ingredient, so I was happily surprised when I found that there was about 150 grams used for the one dish.
Hi there, pumpkin.
The selection of mains is fairly broad with everything from your usual pastas and pizzas to a selection of steak and seafood mains. I had the gnocchi with butternut pumpkin, sage and crushed amaretti biscuits ($20). The pumpkin, which I had assumed would be cubed, actually arrived as purée. I also expected that the sage would be used in the dish, not just as a garnish. Although it was fairly simple, it was still a tasty dish.
A seafood smorgasbord.
No Italian feast would be complete without pizza. The seafood pizza ($22) is made on a delicate homemade base and slathered with rustic tomato sauce. Keeping with Italian tradition, the pizzas have minimal toppings to really let the flavours shine. The three seafood ingredients used on this pizza are prawns, baby octopus and calamari. While the pizza was enjoyable, as it was listed on the menu as a prawn pizza, a few more prawns would have been nice. Also, the use of full-bodied baby octopuses really disconcerted me and distracted me from the pizza experience.
Overall my dining experience at The Italian Kitchen was enjoyable, and while I enjoyed the atmosphere and the authentic Italian dishes, I think some of the portions needn't to be as big as they are, as after an appetiser and my main I had no more room left for the orange tart I'd spotted on the dessert menu. The only other thing to note would be that the chef will not cook the lamb dish according to your wishes, so if you’re a lamb lover you can only get this dish ‘rare’.
Rating: 7/10
Where: Level 2, Shop 2203, 600 The Kingsway, Westfield Miranda, 2228
Cost: Entrees from $3.50, Mains from $10.
When: Everyday: 8am- 10pm.
Good for kids: Yes.
Take away: Yes.
Categories:
#miranda
#westfield_miranda
#italian
#pizza
#italian_restaurants
%sydneyfoodlovers
237454 - 2023-07-18 01:27:14