Indomato, Young St, Neutral Bay

Indomato, Young St, Neutral Bay

Wednesday 20 June, 2007

Tonight's dinner was to welcome home the happy couple from Italy - so it was fitting that we chose a local Italian.

Indomato is an Italian seafood restaurant located on the corner of Young & Grosvenor Sts and has a large interior. The decor is tacky with a fountain on entry, tiled floors, white/ blue washed walls and wooden furnishings. There is a dining area downstairs along with the kitchen and then a set of stairs leading up to further seating, a lounge bar and big screen TV. I got the impression this venue was packed during the World Cup soccer.

Indomato describe themselves as, "Indomato Restaurant, not to be missed, specialising in modern Italian and fresh seafood cuisine. Set menu is available to suit any budget for group bookings so is a degustation menu. All ingredients are handmade on the premises including the pasta, biscotti, ice cream and sorbets. High ceilings, a cocktail lounge / private room / bar / plasma and service that are friendly and focused on customer satisfaction create the ambience." [This is taken directly from their own website with no editing from Steph]

We were seated and offered menus by our incredibly charming (if a little overdone) Italian waiter. His accent purred through the specials but I found his suggestions a little pushy - bread? wine? entrees? dessert? coffee? - it seemed to go on and on. Don't get me wrong, he was polite but his open white shirt and hairy chest with gold cross was too much for me.

We kicked off with some Roasted garlic ciabatta bread and a variation on bruschetta with avocado, fetta and roasted tomatoes. It was very good and the avocado bruschetta was a winner - the avocado and fetta was crumbled not sliced and the chunky consistency worked really well. It was a meal in itself.

For main I couldn't go past the dinner special - roast rabbit (aka Georgie) with garlic, rosemary & lemon polenta. My dinner buddies opted for the linguine marinara - mussels, vongole, prawns, calamari & scampi infused with basil & tomato; risotto with scampi, prawns & octopus with lemon-olive oil and parsley dressing; and the scotch fillet crushed kiphlers & olive tapenade with butter sauce.

When the meals arrived we were overwhelmed at how big they were. My rabbit was enormous however the meat was still on the bone and it was served on a large pile of polenta. As the waiter placed it in front of me he indicated it would taste like chicken. Did I look worried? It was delicious. There were halved roasted lemons on the side that complimented the polenta.

My dinner buddies all enjoyed their meals and we were so full that none of us even looked twice at the dessert menu. Sadly, we were the only guests in the restaurant all night. This was painful as there were 4 staff working while we were there and there was no way our meal would have covered their wages.

Hint - make sure you remember to BYO as this local Italian is a little $$. Our table of 4 ordered 2 x bread, a main meal each, a bottle of wine and it was $50pp.

Indomato - 24 Young St, Neutral Bay - (02) 8969 6900

http://www.indomato.com.au/