Alio Restaurant

Q: How good is discovering restaurants you never knew existed?
A: dayyyyyym good. Especially when they’re big fat wins that you’ll be coming back to.
The 10-​course degustation at Ali was of enviable quality, monstrous size, and impeccable setting. Hey, that’s a triple threat. Someone get Alio onto Australia’s Got Talent, quickly now.
First, the ambience: mood lighting, a half-​full restaurant, and the foresight from the maitre’d to spread everyone out and give each table a little privacy. Nice. Appreciated.
The espresso cup of pumpkin & ginger soup was a delightful start, and then BAM, they hit us with the antipasti board. A thyme-​and-​oil-​filled jar of beautiful mixed olives, bresaola, piquant parmesan, stunning white anchovies and the winner, something I’d never heard of before: truffled dwarf peaches. They looked like small slices of grape tomato but were crunchy, with a creamy truffle flavour, a pickled tang and something else I can’t put my finger on. Had never heard of them before and the waitress sashayed over when she saw my face and told me a little about them. Dwarf peaches never ripen, apparently. Poor little guys. Nahh, I can’t pity them, they’re too delicious to pity.
The parmesan croquette was my least fave course, but only because I have this weird hang-​up where anything crumbed and deep-​fried makes me think of something I can get at my local milk bar along with a chiko roll. The twice-​cooked sticky sausage was gold, as were the stuffed portobellos with parmesan, ricotta and lemon zest.
By course 5 I’d had it, there was no way I was gonna make the full 10. The waitress saw this and gave us half an hour to recuperate and reinvigorate. It worked. Clever girl.
Sweetcorn in the prawn and parsley risotto was inspired. The braised oxtail ragu on the al dente fusili damn near melted off my fork. They were out of the cassatta so subbed a tiramsu in instead (um yeah WIN), and the panacotta and insane chocolate brownie with vincotto strawberry were a sweet, sweet high to end this meal — nay, this experience — on.
Superb.

This is the restaurant which introduced me to beautifully aged olive oil and 25 year old balsamic vinegar years ago. I remember frantically looking around for them and finally finding it at Fratelli Fresh. Phew!
There is nothing better than dipping fresh, warm crusty bread into olive oil and balsamic vinegar, maybe some olives. So good.
Alio is a beautiful Italian restaurant and the food is still as good as a the first time I dined here. I love the ravioli (pumpkin with sage butter, which is the perfect combination) and the creamy risotto. Pretty simple stuff but its cooked really well and my form of comfort food. Then you top it all off with the tiramisu, one of my favourite desserts and its excellent here.
This restaurant is where to go for some good quality food for the soul.

Had the ala carte dinner, food was superb. Service was excellent.