Machiavelli Ristorante Italiano | Sydney CBD
Machiavelli is located right in the heart of Sydney CBD just a short walk away from Wynard Station. Machiavelli is a fine dining traditional Italian restaurant with focus in finest produces, seafood and handpicked ingredients. All the dishes we had were singing on the plate with bold flavours, amazing techniques and perfect presentation. We were also on the look out for famous people but didn't have any success on a Tuesday night. Machiavelli is all about the customer so if you have any dietary requirements, special requests or wine pairing expertise, they will happily prepare this for you.
Canadian Scallops
The best tasting scallop dish we've had in years! The amazing Poulette sauce surprisingly worked with the Canadian scallops. Poulette sauce is a creamy, tangy mushroom sauce usually served with poultry dishes. Machiavelli served their perfectly cooked scallop which was sweet and thick, wrapped in speck with caramelized onions and asparagus with poulette sauce. We devoured every single bite and evenly distributed the last piece of scallop.
Fiori Di Zucchini Fritti
As
you may know, we study the menu before we visit a place, all the time. We also do lots of
research on the restaurant (it's just what we do) and when given the option, we
would never, ever say no to stuffed zucchini flowers! These zucchini flowers were lightly
battered and stuffed with light ricotta. It was a simple dish but made well. We
normally see zucchini flowers served on its own so it was a interesting to see it served with a tomato concasse and balsamic glaze. Tomato concasse is a cooking method where the tomato skin is peeled and seeded and chopped to specified dimensions.
Filetto Di Manzo
Matt always orders his steak medium to medium rare and he would nervously wait for his main (hoping it would be cooked to perfection). There was a choice between mushroom sauce or peppercorn sauce. The combination of creamed spinach, potato gratin and the mushroom sauce made this dish so tasty. The piece of 120-day grain fed hormone free grilled fillet steak was handled well with care and cooked to perfection - hallelujah (Matt was so happy). If you do end up ordering this dish, the plate is extremely hot (and remained that way for several minutes). Perfect to keep the steak, potato and creamed spinach warm whilst we took the photos!
Ravioli Alla Veneziana
The moment this dish arrived at our table, we could smell the chargrilled aroma from the snapper and scampi. It smelt amazing and we couldn't wait to try it. I wanted to leave the scampi to last because it looked quite messy to eat however, all I needed to do was pierce my fork into the scampi and everything just fell out. It was definitely something I never experienced before (except for watching this on Masterchef). The stuffed ravioli was tasty and cooked al dente and the cherry tomato sauce was subtle - I think I'd prefer a rich sauce instead but either way, a very delicious dish.
Tiramisu
Such a pretty way to present Tiramisu. We're used to the traditional rectangle serving so this presentation wowed us. We've seen some being served in a glass as well. Loved the little bits and pieces scattered on the plate like crumbs, strawberries and the chocolate sauce. The homemade mascarpone cream was creamy, sweet and the coffee liqueur sponge was soaked just enough. It was very moist but the liqueur flavour wasn't too strong.
Crostata Di Limone
The classic lemon tart should be light, refreshing and tangy. It was the complete opposite at Machiavelli where the lemon flavour was extremely strong and quite heavy. The tart was quite dense which was different to what we anticipated. We were hoping the tart would be more on the crumbly side but nonetheless, the little Italian meringue buttons were much needed to break the acidity. We could only finish half the dessert as so we'd recommend you order one lemon tart to share.
Snapshots of Food dined as guests of Polkadot PR and Machiavelli