The strip of restaurants on the Pacific Highway at Lindfield have undergone a gourmet revamp since the last time I passed by. One of the restaurants which caught my eye was the sleek looking Marciano’s, which serves up Italian dishes including woodfired pizza and spuntino (Italy’s take on tapas).
It’s a spacious restaurant, with contemporary decor like exposed hanging lights, polished wooden floors, comfy black banquette seats along the wall and a huge woodfire oven for their pizzas. The oven is put to good use, churning out metre long pizzas that could give Sydney’s king of pizza Via Napoli a run for their money.
We start off our meal with a Spuntino Mix to share, which is a long, thin wooden board holding a combo of all of their entrees so that you don’t have to choose between what to get. We tuck into a home-made potato croquette, a huge arancini ball with ragu, mozzarella and peas, some tasty slivers of prosciutto di Parma and chewy bufala mozzarella, an intriguing home-made Italian fried dough ball with Napoletana sauce (Panzerotti Napoletani), crumbed polenta chips and deliciously crispy calamari. It’s an easy way to fly through dishes from various regions of Italy (we spotted Campagnia and Sicily as the origins for some of the dishes on the menu) and primed us for more Italian goodness to come.
Spuntino Mix, $35
We thoroughly enjoyed the Tagliolini Marciano, which featured a home-made thin linguine with a moreish spicy ragu, cherry tomatoes and onions. This flavoursome, hearty pasta dish was a surprise winner for the table and we kind of wish we had ordered more.
Tagliolini Marciano, $26
The masterpiece was the 1 metre long woodfired pizza, which was shared between 5. We were allowed to pick 3 different toppings and went for the Tosta, Frutti di Mare and Pizza Bianco (a blackboard special), which were all very different and gave us a great mix of flavours. We loved the Pizza Bianco, which was a flavourful blend of pancetta, funghi (mushrooms) and truffle oil, and were also fans of the generous amounts of prawns and calamari on the Frutti di Mare paired with a tasty tomato, garlic and parsley sauce. The Tosta surprised us a bit because we weren’t expecting the broccoli (which was quite bitter) which overpowered the Italian sausage and other elements of the toppings. While I enjoy the pizzas at Via Napoli, I found myself enjoying the more flavoursome and varied toppings available at Marciano’s and the thin, crispy base here was a winner too.
1 Metre Pizza, $75
We couldn’t resist the sound of the Nutella Pizza for dessert and we were not disappointed at all – glorious amounts of Nutella slathered onto that thin, woodfired base and topped off with sliced strawberries. It’s a simple way to go to Nutella heaven.
Nutella Pizza, $20
Marciano’s is a gem of a place, serving up delicious, authentic Italian food at a reasonable price with friendly service, in a suburb which is undergoing a bit of a gourmet revival. Great spot for locals and worth the trek for those who don’t live in the neighbourhood.
Marciano’s
310-312 Pacific Highway
Lindfield NSW 2070
Phone:(02) 9416 1110
That taglioni sounds like my kind of pasta dish! I love the variation you can get with the Sputino mix – you get to try a bit of everything!