Palazzo Salato
Salato means savoury in Italian. Palazzo Salato, what an apt name for a restaurant that prides itself on its handmade pastas and local produce. This newish venture from the Love Tilly Group has been around Sydney for about as long as I’ve been around Sydney (nearly nine months).
Set on Clarence Street, large almost floor to ceiling arched windows look in on this house of cool. The interior is the height of interior design chic right now. The beige walls are textural plaster and Matisse-style art hangs from it. A floating shelf runs around the perimeter showing off wine bottles. There are brown leather banquettes and the room is warmed up with shiny brass-coloured finishings.
The menu is laid out as antipasti, pastas, secondi (you know, big protein heavy things), contorni and dolce. This is perhaps a controversial statement to make but I’m getting tired of big ass hunks of meat (namely steak), especially when they don’t taste like the million bucks they cost me to order them. Maybe the cost-of-living crisis will be slightly less critical if we all stopped ordering these steaks. So today I was happy to avoid the secondi section of the menu in favour of the area this group excels in: pasta. I’m not immune to the influence of an Instagram post here and there and I had heard great things through the grapevine that the trippa alla Romana (yes, tripe) and spanner crab malfadine were their signature dishes and a must order.
I’m proud to say that I can have my mind changed about things. Less than a week ago I was declaring I could give or take eating tripe. Often when poorly prepared, it tastes kind of offal. The texture is weird for one, like a sea sponge from the deep. Weird textures, particularly sponginess, is something not appreciated by the Western palate. I’m happy to announce however that the trippa alla Romana is a most fantastic dish that I am certain can turn many a denouncer of tripe into an extoller. The richly flavoured tomato-based sauce has a hearty kick of heat that hits you in the back of the throat. The tripe soaks all of these delicious flavours right up and is really a buoyant vessel for flavour. There is a lovely creaminess lent by the white beans, but I wish I saw a few more whole ones as I had been promised big fat beans by the waitress. We made full use of the accompanying focaccia to absorb every last drop of this tangy, spicy stew.
Malfadine, a pasta shape previously uncommon in encounter in restaurants, is having a moment. It looks a little like a pre-schooler went wild on some play dough with one of those plastic crimping rollers, and it is thick and chewy in the best way possible. Palazzo Salato serves theirs with spanner crab, uni butter, chilli and sea blight (samphire). This dish is thalassic perfection and tastes like a mouthful of sea air. The spanner crab bits are juicy and generous and the overall effect not too creamy. It is simply marvellous.
We plumped for the agnolotti dal plin for our second pasta dish which were little parcels of pasta filled with Wessex Saddleback pig and prune. ‘Interesting’ is the first word that sprung to mind when eating this dish. Whilst the pasta outer was delicate the porky centre was surprisingly firm and tasted like a pork terrine. The pistachios added a toasty texture and the burnt butter sauce was perfectly emulsified. I’ve never had anything quite like it. Vegetarians, block your ears/close your eyes for what I’m about to say: you know that aroma you get when you walk into a nice butchers? That’s this dish in a pistachio nutshell.
‘Tis the season to appreciate stone fruit and tomatoes at their ripest, so it seemed rude not to order the peach, tomato and charred shishito peppers. It was a refreshing side, the shishito peppers hot and tangy, but I would have preferred to see some meaty heirloom tomatoes in there rather than the cherry tomatoes we got. It felt like it also needed a bit of basil or something textural to make it truly standout.
I liked the use of seasonal ingredients when it came to our dessert of apricot with whipped mascarpone, savoiardi and pistachio. Apricots, unlike its other stone fruit cousins, definitely benefit from some cooking time, be it under a grill or simmered down on the stove, in order to make its flavour pop. Here it is lightly grilled so it retains a lot of freshness and tang. Pistachio comes not only in the form of crumbs but also in pistachio butter. If you have not had this wonderful green gunge before, you must! I liken it to green gold, a flavour that is rich and unique, and it costs a pretty penny. This dolce is all about the interplay of various textures and it does it well.
You know you’ve had a great dinner when you’re already plotting your next visit on the way home. Bravo Palazzo Salato!
Palazzo Salato
201/203 Clarence Street
Sydney
NSW 2000
Ph. (02) 9044 2554