Late last year Italian food scene stalwart Neroteca suffered a bit of an ownership shake-up. Fans of the charmingly laid-back local take on a classic Italian enoteca (wine bar offering food) will be glad to know that it hasn’t translated into a change for the worse.

A recent lunch of simple but well-prepared standards left us feeling that some of KL’s more high-falutin’ restaurants could learn a thing or two from Neroteca about letting good ingredients speak for themselves. The antipasti plate for two was as good a version as we’ve had outside of Italy. Featuring a surprisingly abundant selection of seafood (not-too-salty cured anchovy fillets, spicy pepperoncini stuffed with tuna, slices of lovely silky smoked fish, fresh prawns, tender squid rings in a piquant tomato sauce, flakes of grilled fish), along with two varieties of olives and grilled and oil-preserved veggies, it made for the perfect accompaniment to slices from a pleasingly crusty, chewy loaf.

The Mediterranean salad, big enough for two to share was, as advertised, full of ‘healthy’ ingredients: grilled zucchini and eggplant, slices of red and yellow pepper, carrot, and asparagus. The curly leaf lettuce, we think, might be served a bit less dressed (read ‘limp’) and augmented with some of the fabulously perky arugala that crowns the antipasti.

Lunch calls for sandwiches and here Neroteca, drawing on a rich Italian heritage of things on and between bread, bats with the rest of them. The Tirolese, a piadini (think super-thin, very lightly toasted pizza dough) topped with gorgonzola, speck (a variety of cured ham most often associated with Alto Adige – the Tyrols, get it?), and arugala was by alternate bites salty-super creamy and blue cheese funky (as fans of stinky cheese we mean that in the best possible way), delightfully oozy to the end.

We’d recommend that Neroteca consider going a wee bit heavier on the pork fat for the homemade sausage stuffed into its grilled Campagnole panini (the meat was fantastically porky but a might dry), but we loved the flavourful and quality olive-oil rich eggplant caponata slathered on the bread. To minimize the possibility of grease-covered fingers the sandwich is served wrapped in paper, just the sort of attention to detail we can appreciate.

Though we arrived with the best of intentions (a thorough appetiser-through-dessert review) the most we could manage après sandwich was a couple of coffees. For the rich crema sported by our espresso we say, ‘Grazie very much.’

Rating: 4/5










Neroteca is a finalist in the Time Out KL Food Awards 2009 Best Italian Restaurant category. The Time Out KL's food awards are 100% voted for by the people of KL. This way, we guarantee that popularity and consistent performance is rewarded.

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