Il Piatto

I went to Il Piatto on Friday night.

The ambience of the place is fantastic, table cloths, beautiful glassware & plates and gorgeous lighting. The view is also one of the best from a restaurant in Darwin. The chairs are very comfortable and the decor is neutral and elegant.

Our entrees were the oysters, the seafood salad and the carpaccio of beef.
The oysters were very good and were simply presented with slender wedges of lemon.
The seafood salad was mediocre and not flavoursome due, in part, to being underdressed.
My $25 beef carpaccio was on the menu as having rocket leaves but came with lettuce mix and was almost tasteless except for the cracked pepper crusting on the outside of the beef and the shaved parmesan. There was not even a simple dressing on the dish aside from being circled by three thin lines of balsamic glaze (possibly from a bottle).

Mains were taglioni with slipper lobster (a.k.a. balmain bug), chicken stuffed with cheese & sun-dried tomatoes with a sage sauce and a pizza siciliana (salami and black olive).
It all sounded SO good.
The pasta was bland and you could only really taste the tomato sauce base with a meagre amount of the "slipper lobster" having been cooked to rubbery tastelessness.
The chicken tasted like it had a coles chicken seasoning on the outside of it and my friend said there wasn't even a hint of sage flavour in the sauce. As it was decorated with rosemary - I did wonder if they had any sage out the back at all....
The pizza on the other hand was suberb! The tomato base was rich and full of flavour and the crust was light and crisp. The other toppings were salami, small whole black olives and really nice cheese.

Two other items of note were that we had overservice regarding the taking of our order, pretty sure we were asked at least 4 times within about 15 minutes if we were ready to order. While this overservice did translate well regarding water top ups and drinks service, it was getting annoying at the begnning of the evening.

The other is that the wine list comprised either boring but quaffable wines that you can get at the local bottle shop or Italian wines. Being unfamiliar with the latter - as I suspect a few Darwinites may be, it would have been lovely to have someone knowledgeable among the staff suggest one.

I think this restaurant is well suited for having a superb pizza with a glass of quaffable wine and soaking up the sunset.

But to call it fine dining is well off the mark.
The food is pub food quality - which is fine when you're in a pub, not fine when you are paying wads of cash for it in a restaurant that is dressed up as a fine dining restaurant.

A note to the unsuspecting - no take away is available. I had a fairly assertive discussion with one of the waiters and managed to take half of my pizza home, but it was hard work.

I feel quite strongly on this issue. I have paid for it, therefore it is mine to do with as I will. Give me a waiver to sign. Let me know before I order - perhaps a note on the menu, and I will order less (ie. no $25 carpaccio) so that I won't have left overs to hassle you about!

So, the numbers:
AMBIENCE: 9/10
SERVICE: 6/10
WINE: 4/10
FOOD: 3/10 (with the exception of pizza and oysters)
VALUE FOR MONEY: 5/10