Melbourne Gastronomy (3) - DALMATINO, Bay Street, Port Melbourne

Interior, Dalmatino

Dalmatino in Bay Street Port Melbourne was the place for a family celebration with nine of us sitting down around the table. It claims to be Croatian cooking. Our large group required that we have a set dinner menu with three shared entrees, a choice of main course and two side dishes to accompany the mains. Details are available if you click here

The helpings were huge and not a soul among us ordered a dessert.

The entrees were very fine stuff. Equal best were the Port Lincoln calamari mixed with apple, celery and aioli salad and some mouth-watering asparagus and ricotta crepes.  The third entree, a charcuterie plate of cold meat and a hard cheese was a bit blah.

By the time everyone had had a pick of the mains a couple of things had happened. The house ran out of its fish special of rockling with pippies in a sauce so that further orders for fish had to make do with a monkfish dish in a tomato stew base. No one complained about either. 

The two meat dishes offered huge slabs. The slow cooked lamb shoulder was accompanied by white bean truffled mash, broccolini and olives. The braised beef cheeks came in a thick sauce flavoured with prune, apple and red wine. Some large potato gnocchi were embedded in the sauce as well. This was hearty food as was the last dish, a risotto flavoured with Swiss brown and porcini mushrooms.

A fine Mornington Peninsula Pinot and an Italian Pinot Grigio, off an exceedingly extensive wine list, washed it all down.

The set menu for food runs out at $55 per person, $65 if you can fit in a dessert. As I said, nobody could!