Gattopardo: Interesting Dessert + Nice Ambience

To cap off Restaurant Week, my family and I made a trip to Gattopardo, an Italian restaurant that has been featured in several prestigious magazines like the Singapore Tatler. 

Upon entering, we were greeted warmly by the host and ushered upstairs to our table. The decor was simple yet pleasing to the eye, for a fine balance was struck between black-and-white, clean-cut chic and a cosy, lived-in air. 

The Restaurant Interior

Restaurant Week Menu

To get the ball rolling, while the bread served was quite fragrant, it was, unfortunately, served cold. Although this might seem like nitpicking, the quality of the bread is often a bellwether of the overall standard of the establishment - think of the bread not just as an obligatory stomach-filler prior to the meal but as a first impression, and you'll see why. 

For the amuse bouche, a bolus comprising meat and potato chunks (apologies for my memory fails me now) was served along with a slightly spicy dip. 

The first course was a Tasmanian petuna ocean trout carpaccio. Although salmon carpaccios are fairly ubiquitous, this dish exceeded my expectations, for the salmon slivers tasted fresh and were tinged with a hint of citrus. Furthermore, the chopped leek and shredded persimmon complemented the lightness of the salmon, making this dish a refreshing one. 

  

Ocean Trout Carpaccio

Next up, I ordered the angel hair pasta with sardinian grey mullet "bottarga" (i.e., "poor man's caviar", or cured roe of grey mullet fish) and sea urchin. Despite the high hopes I had had for this dish, the dish was overly salty and the pasta was probably a tad too thick to have been called "angel hair pasta". In addition, the pasta was not as creamy as I had expected it to be and lacked the true taste of uni, quite unlike the sea urchin pasta I had had at Otto Ristorante which oozed with unctuous goodness.

A bad hair day for the cherubs, maybe?

The crowning dish of the day would have to be the dessert, which was the signature nougat parfait with toasted "noto" almond sauce. The nougat parfait was quite distinctive and was of the perfect consistency - sticky enough to maintain a flat-domed structure, yet fluffy enough to break away like cumulonimbus clouds against the steely edges of the spoon. The toasted almond sauce also added an interesting touch, though the saccharine notes could have been downplayed as it was a little cloying. 

Nougat Parfait with Toasted "Noto" Almond Sauce

In a nutshell, Gattopardo's food was pretty interesting, and while there is definitely room for improvement, the meal left quite a good impression. All in all, a decent meal with which to conclude Restaurant Week!