As mentioned in a previous post, there is a new restaurant in Kingston.
Il Portico had its soft launch tonight. We were greeted very warmly by the friendly restaurant staff. The inside of the modern looking restaurant is decorated with the colours of Italy – red, green and white. There are softly padded white bench seats against the red walls. My partner noticed some of the light fittings against the wall that look like they’ve been taken from inside a computer, giving off a spiral-like lighting effect.
There is limited outdoor seating available with small ottomans and low tables.
The bar looks decked out with lots of liquor. There are also 2 stacks of chopped wood fire against the wall for the big red pizza oven in the kitchen.
Being an Italian restaurant, Il Portico has a selection of pizzas and pastas on the menu (all $19). For its opening night, the menu was quite limited, but the wait staff advised us that there would be more added in the next few days. The pastas seem very simple with only a few ingredients.
My partner ordered the spaghettoni amatriciana with pancetta and tomato. This was a very simple dish done well. Perfectly cooked pasta in a ripe tomato sauce and a heck of a lot of pancetta. Tasty!
I ordered the funghi, salsiccia, mozzarella with truffle oil pizza (mushrooms and sausage). The pizza base was fantastic! I love mushrooms and sausages so this pizza worked really well. There was only a slight hint of truffle oil making the pizza non-greasy. We found out Il Portico have a pizza shop in Yarralumla and the pizza chef had been making pizzas for years. Nice to know they brought in someone with a lot of experience.
There were only 3 types of beer available as the restaurant was still waiting on the rest of their alcohol to be delivered. The glass was slightly dirty, which we didn’t notice until the beer was poured in and there were specks of dirt on the foam. But it wasn’t anything to make a big fuss over.
The only dessert on offer was a gluten-free jaffa cake. I decided to give this a miss and will see what the menu looks like in a few more weeks.
The restaurant does takeaway, so we’ll be ordering some takeaway pizzas soon enough. The size of the pizza here is a medium, so it’s a little bit more expensive than Pizza Arte on the other side of Kingston or Crust. But we both thought it was really good to eat and not too oily.
Eftpos facilities and more alcholic beverage choices will be available later in the week.
Foodgasm 7.5/10
