The Age : Good Food Guide : 2009
Rating : 14/20
Confidence counts for so much in a restaurant. At Rinaldo’s, attached to the King Valley’s Dal Zotto cellar door, quietly spoken chef Adam Pizzini has been fine-tuning his skills and is now cooking better then ever.
His repertoire is much inspired by family recipes, such as Nonna’s canederli brodo, a special Northern Italian bread-dumpling soup based on a subtle chicken broth and loaded with flavour from caramelised onions and salami.
More sophisticated technique is on display in a dish of boned quail stuffed with a farce of pinenuts and pancetta, or a lovely apricot and rhubarb tart topped with fig icecream, memorable for the delicacy of its shortcrust pasty.
Naturally, in such a rustic environment, there’s a strong focus on the local and home-grown – la cucina Italiana, as the restaurant calls it. So after a glass of soave or prosecco with a plate of Northern Italian-style sardines with sweet and sour peppers, you might even enjoy King Valley goat turned into a tomato-based ragú with house-made gnocchi; and a perfectly dressed salad made with root vegetables or greens from the kitchen garden.
The spacious, purpose-built tine shed is comfortable and informal, and the views of the Valley are breathtaking.
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And my wife’s scotch fillet came from the vineyard, she added, pointing outside. “Did you know that beast, too?” I was tempted to ask.
Rinaldo’s of the
It’s produce is superb and chef Adam Pizzini’s traditional Latin dishes are fresh, round-flavoured and ooze style and complexity.
From outside, this big corrugated-iron blockhouse isn’t pretty. But you warm to its insides. Neat joinery holds together a wall of glass overlooking lawn, a magnificent redgum, vines and distant hills. You sit at big hardwood tables on comfortable timber dining chairs with upholstered fabric seats. Oblongs of heavy red-ochre fabric hang from the sloping factory roof.
Excellent bread is baked on the premises and fine local olive oil accompanies it.
A few specials supplement the five starters and five mains. Pasta and gnocchi are house-made and the menu is fairly heavy on accessorized carbohydrates. Sweet-potato tortellini comes with a walnut salsa and shaved cheese, there’s a mussel risotto and – my main – goat with gnocchi.
Less carb-heavy were four brilliant cross-sections of boned quail stuffed with a delightful farce of mostly chestnut. They lay on a terrific “fregola” – toasted hand-rolled pasta balls – cooked with mushrooms and herbs to achieve tempting flavour. Tasty reduced roasting juices and the birds two legs accompanied.
In a sense, you’d be right to say I was saddling up for the next Tour de France with my choices: pappardelle special to start and gnocchi for main. But I loved them both – and you can’t do more then that. Broad pasta strips ($13, $24) were cooked through, yet still firm – perfectly done in other words – and came in the optimal amount of rounded and reduced aromatic tomato sauce that had been relieved of acidity. In the sauce were plump counters of a house-made pork sausage. They lacked something of the bite our waitress had promised. They could have had more of a bouncer’s personality – coarseness and aggression.
Nurtured by the staff or not, the goad ($29) – a stewed mince – was great, and the gnocchi exemplary. Stew juices and a crown of parmesan shreds were perfect and enticing. While firm, two big discs of scotch fillet ($30) had big natural flavour. They lay over a terrific “Dutch” creamed potatos and beans that were properly cooked through and presented in a fine sweet-sour sauce. A well-balanced intense brown juice curled around the solids.
The verdict : Rinaldo’s turned people away in droves the Sunday lunch I was there. It deserves its popularity. It’s mouth-filling Latin-leaning dishes are tasty and expertly cooked. And the wine list is a long work of genius, many bottles in the $20 bracket. Not just Dal Zotto and Pizzini wines either, although the
Sydney Morning Herald : Travel : Secrets Revealed
19 January 2008 : Sue Wallace learns how to make authentic tortellini.
There's a definite art to making tortellini and by my 10th attempt it starts to look a little like the perfect shapes Adam Pizzini is turning out.
Well, almost.
It is all to do with kneading, rolling, squeezing and pinching as you get your hands sticky and messy making your own pasta. All it takes is a little patience, lots of practice and a skilled teacher such as Pizzini.
His passion, soon rubs off and you can't help but feel inspired about wonderful Italian cuisine while at his cooking school at Rinaldo's at Whitfield in the beautiful King Valley.
Teaching others to make pasta and gnocchi the way his Nonna does is something he enjoys, and after a warm welcome the morning session gets under way with a tour of his vegetable garden, full of ingredients to be used in the class.
He then shares his secrets and skills of making and cooking pasta to achieve the perfect taste and texture and favourite recipes.
Soon it is lunch time and you are sitting down eating your own gnocchi and tortellini served with a tasty sauce. Then it is back in the kitchen for more instructions and dishes, followed by a three-course celebration dinner, prepared by Pizzini from fresh local ingredients all matched to Dal Zotto wines. The cellar door of Dal Zotto Estate Wines is next door to Rinaldo's and there's a strong family connection, with Adam working closely with his winemaker cousins, while his Aunty Elena shares her expertise in the kitchen and vegetable garden.
The classes are fun, informative and inspire you to create your own Italian feast at home.
Pizzini can recall feeling his happiest wandering through his Nonna's vegetable garden when he was eight. "I can remember her talking about the Italian varieties of herbs and vegetables and I just treasure that time."
His love of food goes back a long way. His first Scout's badge was a food badge, evidence of his early passion for cooking. His holidays in the King Valley from Brisbane were special and he always wanted to live and work in the region.
Pizzini opened Rinaldo's in February 2006 and has quickly established his name on the culinary scene. Rinaldo's started life as a tobacco shed and has been transformed into a smart, spacious dining room with a rustic ambience of timber floors from locally milled string bark reclaimed from old tobacco kilns.
You can also enjoy the courtyard, which has knockout views of Black Range, towering river gums and the picturesque valley.
Pizzini describes his signature style as simple, modern cooking based on Italian flavours and traditions. He says he always wanted to share his passion for food with others. "I was also really impressed with the variety of local produce that was both plentiful and seasonal."
After an apprenticeship in Brisbane, he started work at the Mountain View Hotel at Whitfield owned by his aunt, uncle and cousins.
He worked at the hotel for six years, during which time it won many pub restaurant awards and became a popular destination for foodies from throughout Victoria and interstate.
These days Pizzini feels he has finally come home and back to his roots.
In terms of his cooking, he says it's all about the intense flavours of King Valley produce that have helped shape the chef he has become.
There is a synergy that is reflected in Rinaldo's seasonal and regional menu, inspired by memories of helping Nonna Pizzini in the kitchen as a young boy and listening to her stories of the Trentino region. Pizzini has taken her advice and planted a variety of Italian herbs and vegetables and the season's bounty flows straight to the dining tables at Rinaldo's.
"I aim to balance my menus with a mix of modern Australian and deeply Italian which reflects my passionate, inventive and playful approach to food," he says. "I describe it as Italian comfort food with an edge."
And the final verdict on my humble tortellini? According to Aunty Elena, it tasted pretty good.
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Winners of 'Restaurant and Catering Victoria's' Informal Dining Restaurant (Regional) - 2007
Finalists of 'Restaurant and Catering Victoria's' Informal Dining Restaurant (Regional) - 2006