Latest news with #Testun
Sydney Morning Herald
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Which acclaimed South West pop-up is coming to Perth?
The Weekly Special Eating out What's on What do Dahl Daddy's and Special Delivery both have in common? In addition to operating as pop-ups and enjoying well-deserved reputations for serving terrific modern Asian cooking, Corey Rozario and Jacob d'Vauz – the respective co-founders of each business – both have Burmese heritage. Which makes the prospect of both camps teaming up for one modern Burmese food party a tantalising thought indeed. It all goes down on Sunday, July 13 when the two crews join forces – Dahl Delivery? Special Daddy's? – to serve their interpretations of the dishes they grew up eating. Expect kangaroo samosas, lahpet thoke (fermented tea leaf salad), fried Shan-style tofu with green mango salad and an absolute rush for table bookings when they get announced. Keep an eye on the social media channels of both Dahl Daddy's and Special Delivery for details on how to secure a spot at what promises to be one of the year's hottest collabs. Staying dry at State Buildings this July As far as somewhere to get tasty things to drink, The State Buildings has long had our backs. This month, it proves (not for the first time) that it's also looking out for teetotallers too by introducing a suite of new non-alcoholic drink options across the precinct showcasing non-alcoholic spirits produced by Ovant. These include a Ginless and Tonic at Wildflower powered by quandong; the Siamese-influenced Limonaid for Long Chim; and the beer-inspired Bitter Winter which will be served at Petition Kitchen and Beer Corner. What Kim Brennan did next In other State Buildings-adjacent news, Kim Brennan – former executive group chef for both State Buildings and COMO The Treasury – has signed on as group executive chef for Fiveight: the property development arm of Nicola and Andrew Forrest's Tattarang company. The Fiveight hospitality stable includes riverside dining room Cooee, CBD cafe and wine bar Copia, Cottesloe's Indigo Oscar and Margaret River luxury property Cape Lodge which appointed journeyman Margaret River chef Iain Robertson (formerly of Cullen and Xanadu) as its new head chef. Watch those spaces. Three the hard-headed Italian way When it comes to reimagining Italian cuisine, two heads – or two head chefs – are better than one, as proven by the food Chris Caravella and Frank Trequattrini are jointly cooking together one-hat Beaufort Street osteria Testun. This weekend, two becomes three as Marche-born chef Nico Renzi temporarily joins the good ship Testun for a week-long residency. A veteran of kitchens such as Vasse Felix and La Madonna Nera, Renzi's bowerbird cooking makes him a great fit for Testun's freewheeling brand of cucina Italiano. (See also the thrilling collaborative menu including ragu of rabbit braised in native herbs, kangaroo loin spiedini, and truffled apple and marsala pie.) The menu runs from Friday until Sunday, July 13. Testun's cheery restaurant manager Antonio di Senzo, meanwhile, has assembled a similarly adventurous line-up of drinks pairings that includes sake and marsala as well as selections from Testun's Italo-leaning cellar. Burnt Ends' Dave Pynt is bringing his modern barbecue cooking to Bali In addition to overseeing Singapore's World's 50 Best-lauded and Michelin-starred modern barbecue restaurant Burnt Ends, Perth-born chef Dave Pynt also has outposts of his smart-casual barbecue restaurant Meatsmith across Asia and The Ledge by Dave Pynt: a poolside barbecue eatery at the luxe Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi. It's the latter that he'll be bringing to Bali when he once again teams up with the legendary, New York-born hotel brand when it opens the Waldorf Astoria Bali. Scheduled to open in 2027 in Nusa Dua, the property's 71 villas and 68 guest suits will feature panoramic views of the Indian Ocean plus dibs on barbecue cooking from one of the world's hottest open-fire talents. 'We're really excited to bring our style of barbecue to the incredible cliffs of Nusa Dua,' says Pynt. 'There's so much to explore in the local produce and flavours. And when you add the magic of cooking over wood fire, it becomes something special.'
The Age
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Which acclaimed South West pop-up is coming to Perth?
The Weekly Special Eating out What's on What do Dahl Daddy's and Special Delivery both have in common? In addition to operating as pop-ups and enjoying well-deserved reputations for serving terrific modern Asian cooking, Corey Rozario and Jacob d'Vauz – the respective co-founders of each business – both have Burmese heritage. Which makes the prospect of both camps teaming up for one modern Burmese food party a tantalising thought indeed. It all goes down on Sunday, July 13 when the two crews join forces – Dahl Delivery? Special Daddy's? – to serve their interpretations of the dishes they grew up eating. Expect kangaroo samosas, lahpet thoke (fermented tea leaf salad), fried Shan-style tofu with green mango salad and an absolute rush for table bookings when they get announced. Keep an eye on the social media channels of both Dahl Daddy's and Special Delivery for details on how to secure a spot at what promises to be one of the year's hottest collabs. Staying dry at State Buildings this July As far as somewhere to get tasty things to drink, The State Buildings has long had our backs. This month, it proves (not for the first time) that it's also looking out for teetotallers too by introducing a suite of new non-alcoholic drink options across the precinct showcasing non-alcoholic spirits produced by Ovant. These include a Ginless and Tonic at Wildflower powered by quandong; the Siamese-influenced Limonaid for Long Chim; and the beer-inspired Bitter Winter which will be served at Petition Kitchen and Beer Corner. What Kim Brennan did next In other State Buildings-adjacent news, Kim Brennan – former executive group chef for both State Buildings and COMO The Treasury – has signed on as group executive chef for Fiveight: the property development arm of Nicola and Andrew Forrest's Tattarang company. The Fiveight hospitality stable includes riverside dining room Cooee, CBD cafe and wine bar Copia, Cottesloe's Indigo Oscar and Margaret River luxury property Cape Lodge which appointed journeyman Margaret River chef Iain Robertson (formerly of Cullen and Xanadu) as its new head chef. Watch those spaces. Three the hard-headed Italian way When it comes to reimagining Italian cuisine, two heads – or two head chefs – are better than one, as proven by the food Chris Caravella and Frank Trequattrini are jointly cooking together one-hat Beaufort Street osteria Testun. This weekend, two becomes three as Marche-born chef Nico Renzi temporarily joins the good ship Testun for a week-long residency. A veteran of kitchens such as Vasse Felix and La Madonna Nera, Renzi's bowerbird cooking makes him a great fit for Testun's freewheeling brand of cucina Italiano. (See also the thrilling collaborative menu including ragu of rabbit braised in native herbs, kangaroo loin spiedini, and truffled apple and marsala pie.) The menu runs from Friday until Sunday, July 13. Testun's cheery restaurant manager Antonio di Senzo, meanwhile, has assembled a similarly adventurous line-up of drinks pairings that includes sake and marsala as well as selections from Testun's Italo-leaning cellar. Burnt Ends' Dave Pynt is bringing his modern barbecue cooking to Bali In addition to overseeing Singapore's World's 50 Best-lauded and Michelin-starred modern barbecue restaurant Burnt Ends, Perth-born chef Dave Pynt also has outposts of his smart-casual barbecue restaurant Meatsmith across Asia and The Ledge by Dave Pynt: a poolside barbecue eatery at the luxe Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi. It's the latter that he'll be bringing to Bali when he once again teams up with the legendary, New York-born hotel brand when it opens the Waldorf Astoria Bali. Scheduled to open in 2027 in Nusa Dua, the property's 71 villas and 68 guest suits will feature panoramic views of the Indian Ocean plus dibs on barbecue cooking from one of the world's hottest open-fire talents. 'We're really excited to bring our style of barbecue to the incredible cliffs of Nusa Dua,' says Pynt. 'There's so much to explore in the local produce and flavours. And when you add the magic of cooking over wood fire, it becomes something special.'
Sydney Morning Herald
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
This spirited Beaufort Street osteria both preserves and challenges Italian restaurant culture
In a maximalist dining room serving minimal intervention wines, a firebrand Perth chef is connecting the past and present of la cucina vera. Previous SlideNext Slide The legendary Alba white truffle. Beguiling Barbaresco and Barolo wines. The dainty filled pasta, agnolotti di plin: just three regional food and drink specialties one might associate with Piedmont in northern Italy. One of Piedmont's lesser-known foodstuffs, however, is Testun di Barolo. A cow and goat's milk cheese aged in grape skins, Testun is an example of formaggio ubriaco: 'drunken cheeses' preserved with wine and alcohol. Testun is also Piedmontese slang for a hard-headed person, which makes it a very apt name for a restaurant committed to doing Italian food its way. Where was your response to news that the Trequattrini family opened their brash Beaufort Street osteria three years ago? Broadly speaking, diners could be split into two groups: those that fell hard for Testun's maximalist decor and soundtrack that mashed together Saturday night at the club with Sunday lunch at nonna's house. And traditionalists that clutched their rosary beads at the presence of fermented soy butter and 'hulk sauce' on the menu, plus the word stronzo on the welcome mat. My initial reaction to Testun could best be described as one-foot-in-each-camp. I appreciated the thinking behind the concept, yet the music, the explosions of colour and the heavily worked nature of some dishes overwhelmed me. More wasn't always more. I'm not sure if it's because I've mellowed or the restaurant has, but Testun today feels like a tamer, more approachable beast that the restaurant that gatecrashed the Beaufort Street food scene circa 2022. You'll still be serenaded by more 4/4 kick drums than your average restaurant playlist, but the vibe no longer shouts 'rave'. Groups of 20-somethings sporting baggy, ankle-high pants and Carhartt still form a healthy chunk of the crowd here, yet so do family units including smartly dressed parents and grandparents wearing sensible shoes. Both sets of diners look right at home, thanks in no small part to the enthusiastic floor team led by restaurant manager Antonio di Senzo. He's also the person to quiz about the wine list: a collection of lo-fi, minimal intervention wines with a similar sense of fun as the restaurant. Testun's food also tastes a little more settled and focused. Gone is the cosmopolitan exuberance that defined many of the kitchen's earlier efforts: in its place, dishes cooked with generosity and a curiosity about globalism's impact on la cucina vera. This isn't Italian food that's been trapped in someone's grandmother's basement for decades, but rather Italian cooking that's been raised in Australia, but allowed to travel the World Wide Web. Or in the case of chef Christopher Caravella: although he spent more than a decade at his family's legendary Freo restaurant Capri, it was eating at suburban restaurants and takeaways as a kid that helped shape his palette. So that grilled skewer of ruffled mortadella sluiced with a zippy barbecue sauce and fingers of golden turmeric-stained pickles is an homage to a certain multinational fast food empire ruled by a clown named Ronald. Maple syrup and Vegemite lend the sweet and the salty to the whipped butter served alongside fat planks of fluffy, panettone-like focaccia. The bad news: team Testun no longer makes its own Umbrian-style salumi that starred on its opening menu. The good? They've sweet talked butcher Nathan Marinelli of Lot 24 into making bespoke, globetrotting sausages for the restaurant. Right now, the kitchen is rolling a salsiccia di pollo alla Siamese over its charcoal grill: Thai-inspired chicken snags sharp with galangal and lemongrass. Is Perth's dining scene entering some sort of sausage factory golden era? The signs are promising. Asian cookery also underpins herbal lamb rump braised in liquorice root and served on a bed of cooked coix: a white, barley-like grain also known as Job's Tears. If some Michelin-starred Italian chef was tasked with reworking Malaysian-style bak kut teh for the business class menu on ITA Airways (RIP Alitalia), it'd probably taste and look something like this. In a good way. Occasionally, the kitchen's creativity gets the better of it. I suspect some will find the fiery fermented chilli on the spicy tuna crostino too spicy. The crunch and char of coal-grilled spaghetti – a reinterpretation of fiery spaghetti all'assassina – left me confused. Yet it's testament to the vibrancy of Caravella's food that missteps like these haven't deterred me from returning, especially when such high-risk-high-reward cooking yields home runs a la a warm rice pudding dessert starring fennel-poached pears and golden clusters of caramelised cornflakes inspired by Honey Joys. At a time when fewer restaurants seem to be taking risks on their menus, bold thinking like this needs to be applauded. For all of Testun's renegade behaviour, it still upholds many (Italian) restaurant ideals. You can get a very classic Caesar salad. Family members and partners are key characters of the story, not least di Sanzo's partner and pasta maker Marta Rosati, while Caravella's sweetheart Martina Ciotti brings honey and kitchen power to the party.
The Age
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
This spirited Beaufort Street osteria both preserves and challenges Italian restaurant culture
In a maximalist dining room serving minimal intervention wines, a firebrand Perth chef is connecting the past and present of la cucina vera. Previous SlideNext Slide The legendary Alba white truffle. Beguiling Barbaresco and Barolo wines. The dainty filled pasta, agnolotti di plin: just three regional food and drink specialties one might associate with Piedmont in northern Italy. One of Piedmont's lesser-known foodstuffs, however, is Testun di Barolo. A cow and goat's milk cheese aged in grape skins, Testun is an example of formaggio ubriaco: 'drunken cheeses' preserved with wine and alcohol. Testun is also Piedmontese slang for a hard-headed person, which makes it a very apt name for a restaurant committed to doing Italian food its way. Where was your response to news that the Trequattrini family opened their brash Beaufort Street osteria three years ago? Broadly speaking, diners could be split into two groups: those that fell hard for Testun's maximalist decor and soundtrack that mashed together Saturday night at the club with Sunday lunch at nonna's house. And traditionalists that clutched their rosary beads at the presence of fermented soy butter and 'hulk sauce' on the menu, plus the word stronzo on the welcome mat. My initial reaction to Testun could best be described as one-foot-in-each-camp. I appreciated the thinking behind the concept, yet the music, the explosions of colour and the heavily worked nature of some dishes overwhelmed me. More wasn't always more. I'm not sure if it's because I've mellowed or the restaurant has, but Testun today feels like a tamer, more approachable beast that the restaurant that gatecrashed the Beaufort Street food scene circa 2022. You'll still be serenaded by more 4/4 kick drums than your average restaurant playlist, but the vibe no longer shouts 'rave'. Groups of 20-somethings sporting baggy, ankle-high pants and Carhartt still form a healthy chunk of the crowd here, yet so do family units including smartly dressed parents and grandparents wearing sensible shoes. Both sets of diners look right at home, thanks in no small part to the enthusiastic floor team led by restaurant manager Antonio di Senzo. He's also the person to quiz about the wine list: a collection of lo-fi, minimal intervention wines with a similar sense of fun as the restaurant. Testun's food also tastes a little more settled and focused. Gone is the cosmopolitan exuberance that defined many of the kitchen's earlier efforts: in its place, dishes cooked with generosity and a curiosity about globalism's impact on la cucina vera. This isn't Italian food that's been trapped in someone's grandmother's basement for decades, but rather Italian cooking that's been raised in Australia, but allowed to travel the World Wide Web. Or in the case of chef Christopher Caravella: although he spent more than a decade at his family's legendary Freo restaurant Capri, it was eating at suburban restaurants and takeaways as a kid that helped shape his palette. So that grilled skewer of ruffled mortadella sluiced with a zippy barbecue sauce and fingers of golden turmeric-stained pickles is an homage to a certain multinational fast food empire ruled by a clown named Ronald. Maple syrup and Vegemite lend the sweet and the salty to the whipped butter served alongside fat planks of fluffy, panettone-like focaccia. The bad news: team Testun no longer makes its own Umbrian-style salumi that starred on its opening menu. The good? They've sweet talked butcher Nathan Marinelli of Lot 24 into making bespoke, globetrotting sausages for the restaurant. Right now, the kitchen is rolling a salsiccia di pollo alla Siamese over its charcoal grill: Thai-inspired chicken snags sharp with galangal and lemongrass. Is Perth's dining scene entering some sort of sausage factory golden era? The signs are promising. Asian cookery also underpins herbal lamb rump braised in liquorice root and served on a bed of cooked coix: a white, barley-like grain also known as Job's Tears. If some Michelin-starred Italian chef was tasked with reworking Malaysian-style bak kut teh for the business class menu on ITA Airways (RIP Alitalia), it'd probably taste and look something like this. In a good way. Occasionally, the kitchen's creativity gets the better of it. I suspect some will find the fiery fermented chilli on the spicy tuna crostino too spicy. The crunch and char of coal-grilled spaghetti – a reinterpretation of fiery spaghetti all'assassina – left me confused. Yet it's testament to the vibrancy of Caravella's food that missteps like these haven't deterred me from returning, especially when such high-risk-high-reward cooking yields home runs a la a warm rice pudding dessert starring fennel-poached pears and golden clusters of caramelised cornflakes inspired by Honey Joys. At a time when fewer restaurants seem to be taking risks on their menus, bold thinking like this needs to be applauded. For all of Testun's renegade behaviour, it still upholds many (Italian) restaurant ideals. You can get a very classic Caesar salad. Family members and partners are key characters of the story, not least di Sanzo's partner and pasta maker Marta Rosati, while Caravella's sweetheart Martina Ciotti brings honey and kitchen power to the party.
