Friday, March 25, 2011

L’Unità and Maléna

Friday, March 25, 2011
L’Unità is a traditional Italian osteria & wine bar where you can experience handmade pastas, thin crust pizzas, and grilled meats and fish. They have a vast selection of 500 Italian and local wines to complement their seasonal menus.

We had a sample of their salumi board featuring delicious gamey cured meats from L’Unità’s suppliers: Dolce Lucano, The Cheese Boutique, Gabriele Paganelli and smaller producers that they deal with at the St. Lawrence Market.

A delectable favourite of mine was the bacon jam made from scratch at L'Unita and served as a garnish on the salumi board.

L’Unità also makes non-cured additions to their salumi plate daily, such as Rillettes, Terrines and Fresh Sausages.





Maléna serves up their interpretation of Ionian coastal cuisine, heavily influenced by the fresh Mediterranean flavours of Greece and Southern Italy.

Head Chef, Doug Neigel prepared the menu below to showcase the flavours of the region, with exquisite wines expertly selected by Sommelier, Zinta Steprans.


ANTIPASTO

Warm roasted olives & feta
roasted garlic, fresh herbs, peperonico & olive oil

Sardines 'in scapece'
pancetta, parmigiano fricco & garlic crema

Sea urchin crostino
avocado & black cyprus sea salt

Grilled octopus
pancetta & root vegetable fregola, greek yogurt & orange agro dolce

Fritto misto
calamari, prawns & chef's addition crispy gigantes & red pepper conserva


MAINS

Sheep's milk ricotta gnudi
braised rabbit, spinach & crisp parsnip

Berkshire pork chop
truffled celery root mash, swiss chard & apple caponata

Seared branzino 'in padella'
confit fennel, rapini & white anchovy lemon vinaigrette

Whole grilled sea bream
tomato braised gigantes, horta & cucumber tzatziki


SWEETS

Lemon phyllo tart
with lemon semifreddo

Greek honey 'loukoumades'
with pistachios & cinnamon crema

Mascarpone cannoli
with candied dates & walnuts



L’Unità
134 Avenue Road, Toronto
www.lunita.ca
Twitter: @lunita_enoteca

Maléna
120 Avenue Road, Toronto
www.malena120.ca
Twitter: @malena120




Posted by: Mark Rodas