L'Osteria, Fitzroy North

WHEN YOU EAT ITALIAN STICK TO THE ANTIPASTI AND THE PASTA - AND PERHAPS THE PIZZA

Last night we took our ex almost daughter-in-law (yes it's complicated but she's the mother of our grandchildren and part of our family) out for dinner to celebrate her birthday. Between us we chose L'Osteria in North Fitzroy. Now it was a Monday night so the place was hardly buzzing - it's in a somewhat unprepossessing part of Nicholson Street. I think there might have been just three or four tables occupied - but like I said - it was Monday. I'm sure it fills up later in the week.

The room is really rather nice and had an authentic Italian feel to me. Comfortable heavy chairs and spacious tables, not crammed too close together and nice glasses and cutlery. In fact we were at one of these tables in the middle. And the waiter was genial and efficient, though not Italian - not that this mattered at all.

And they were trying with the food too. Every month they apparently focus on a region of Italy, and this month it was Piedmont - home of truffles and Gorgonzola. So we were all good and chose for our main course something from this list - a spaghetti dish with chilli, spinach and anchovies (though Nic declined the anchovies), ravioli with Gorgonzola and walnuts (though my husband declined the walnuts) and a chicken dish cooked in wine with mushrooms and truffles. But we all had an antipasti dish - whitebait, bruschetta and an antipasti platter from the main menu too.

When we were in Italy we were frequently disappointed by the mains - the meat and the fish dishes that is, because they were often unimaginatively cooked without a sauce. Now I know that there are venerable Italian meat and fish dishes, but we have only occasionally encountered them in Italy - and, also in Italian restaurants. I have no idea why this should be. So, for example, my chicken dish was a bit disappointing - yes it did have a sauce - and the spinach was very fresh and spinachy but the sauce was a bit gluggy and really I couldn't taste any truffles. Not that this was a surprise. I think I have only once tasted truffles in a dish that stated it had truffles - and that was in Italy and indeed was delicious. It was a gnocchi dish. Well they are very expensive so they tend to be sparing with them. The ravioli on the other hand were really pretty nice as was the spaghetti - though I think it would have been better with the anchovies, and the chilli, like the truffles, was almost not there.

The antipasti on the other hand were delicious - all of them. And plentiful too. We all shared them and had a taste of all three. (The whitebait and the antipasti are shown below.) And now that I look at the menu again I see that there were several other dishes in the list that I would have been happy to eat.

l'osteria-antipasti

l'osteria-whitebait

The restaurant also did pizza, but I have no idea how good it was because we didn't try it. Pizza is also a bit hit and miss I find.

So the verdict was pretty OK - and where it failed was probably in our hands because we chose the wrong things. Mind you I guess there is an argument that says a really good restaurant should not have any dishes at all on its menu that are not perfect. A very nice place though. Happy to give it another go - but as with all Italian stick to the antipasti and the pasta - which is what we ended up doing in Italy.