A couple of months ago, I had lunch up at Red Hill at Lunetta Trattoria (located on the ground floor). It’s a beautiful sunny day overlooking the views of Red Hill.
We start off with the pumpkin arancini ($16 for 2 pieces) which has a solid golden crumb and wonderful roasted pumpkin flavour. The gnocco fritto ($18 for 2 pieces) with white anchovy, honey and pecorino, are crunchy pastry puffs full of air. Not my favourite dish to be honest.
I love a chicken liver parfait ($26) and we order this, but are told we need to order bread to go with it, so the wood fired flat bread is an additional $16 to this entrée. Expensive! But if you are sharing with others, it’s actually very good – not too rich, smooth and served with caramelised onion and salted cucumber. The wood fired flat bread is a must, even without the parfait. It’s very naan like – soft, chewy elasticity and topped with butter and salt. Together with the parfait, it is amazing.
There are three pastas on the menu that day, and we decide to try all three.
The woodfire baked lumache alla vodka with nduja ($32) is our favourite – reminds me of a simple tomato based pasta bake with a little hit of spice from the nduja scattered on top. Truthfully, I did have to look up ‘lumache’ to find out what kind of pasta it was! (FYI it means snails, so the shape helps trap the sauce). Perfect as the weather turns colder…or any day really.
I am very keen to try the spaghetti cacio e pepe ($33) and see how it holds up against Molto Italian’s. It fell short, and I do find Molto’s has more flavour and boldness. This one just doesn’t seem seasoned enough and also went claggy quickly. The Mafaldine beef cheek and stout ragu with grilled mustard leaf ($38) is a second favourite and I love the very tender pulled beef cheek.
The market fish of the day is the John Dory, with fennel, soaked raisins and courgette and a ‘green sauce’. This is another favourite dish of the day. The fish is cooked perfectly, and I love the freshness of the other ingredients and the added subtle sweetness from the raisins. I was so full from all the pastas, but I kept taking bites of this. Too good.
Of course I must try tiramisu ($20) for dessert which comes out shaped like a crescent moon. Not the best I’ve had – a bit too strong and watery for my taste. The chocolate chip rye cookie vanilla ice cream sandwich ($12) kept a little girl happy.
Lunch at Lunetta Trattoria on a sunny day is gorgeous and there’s a lot of natural light coming in. It’s a great place to relax, have a good chat with a friend as it’s pretty quiet, enjoy some good food and wine, and not be rushed out. I would like to go back and try more of the starters and pastas once they change the menu (they might have already changed the pastas since this visit in January!)
The sister restaurant upstairs Lunetta is a dinner experience, so will need to try that soon…
See my reel for the experience below:
Lunetta Trattoria
60 Red Hill Dr, Red Hill ACT 2603
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