Casa Ciuccio
15 Gertrude St
Fitzroy, VIC 3065
03 8488 8150
www.casaciuccio.com.au
GoogleMap
When visitors come to Melbourne, you take them to places familiar and places new. But when cousin trouble comes to Melbourne, it works a little differently. I’m only allowed to suggest places, but she makes the final call.
That’s how we ended up here. I picked Casa Ciuccio off my wishlist, and trouble, who previously enjoyed a meal at Bar Lourinhã, said “okay!”.
I consider Casa Ciuccio a ‘tapas’ type of place, but with food served in a more Mediterranean-style.
It was 8pm on a quiet Tuesday evening, after a rather scary brunch and dessert pilgrimage across Melbourne. We formed a warm table of six, including fellow food blogger, Daisy and partner.
Stavros peppers 12
Free range Lonza + caperberries 18
We took the menu out of our hands and allowed our waitress to select a good mix of dishes for us. It turned out to be a brilliant option when you have a biggish group and can’t really decide who’s going to like what.
We started off with a platter of good, free-range cured pork and a serve of nicely cooked surprise peppers.
Anchovy montadito 5ea
Tomatoes, pickled chilli + buffalo queso fresco 16
My companions enjoyed the buttery, chargrilled fingers of anchovy toast. But I found myself more drawn to the simplicity within milky fresh buffalo cheese against the acidity of heirloom tomatoes.
BBQ pork ribs 7
Not on the menu were these BBQ ribs. While on the slightly dry side, I liked the chargrilled singe and its not-too-sweet marinade. I normally avoid BBQ type dishes because the sauce tends to be quite sweet, but this was good.
Grilled octopus tentacle 21 (10 per 100g)
Northern King prawn, smoked chilli + lemon 9ea
The traditional Mediterranean-style of chargrilling became more obvious with these two seafood dishes.
While the octopus had a robust meaty chewiness that was thinking about becoming firm, the prawns were divine. Loved the charring!
Spice rubbed pork belly 45 (1.5 serves)
We were less excited by this serve of pork belly, the crackling could’ve been more crisp.
Baked potatoes
Spiced cauliflower + almonds 13
And here’s the obligatory serve of carbs and vegetables to go along with our meat and seafood dishes.
Overall, our waitress, Kim, chose a wonderful selection of savoury dishes. It made the meal flow so very well, many thanks to Kim for that!
Chocolate buñuelos + hazelnut sauce 12
Yiayia’s Kourabiedes 4ea
We next gave Daisy (aka. dessert queen) free reign with our dessert choices. While the white kourabiedes was too sweet (and dry) for my liking, I really enjoyed the buñuelos, they were like Spanish donuts with moist centres infused with banana chocolate.
Marinated watermelon 8
Dulce de leche cream pot + peanut praline 12
The marinated watermelon surprised us with a revitalising yet mellow infusion of star anise sugar syrup. But Daisy’s favourite dessert of the night would have to be the cream pot of dulce de leche. To my surprise, I loved it too… it was creamy yet not too sweet with a good crunch of caramelised sugar.
Overall, it was a nice convivial evening with good company, good food and food service. Special thanks to our waitress, Kim, who took care of our table very well. She queued the flow of our dishes seamlessly.
Keep a look out for more cousin trouble food posts in the coming weeks. And if you’re curious about where else trouble has been to, check out my teaser post titled ‘Trouble in Melbourne‘.
I think I’ve only ever had baby octopus, not a whole big tentacle! Fascinating.
I wonder if that octopus regrew that missing tentacle ;)
So funny that in Melbs, tapas is everywhere.. in Spain it’s only available at the bar for snacks.. not so much as a main meal!
msihua (@msihua) recently posted..St Ali North @ Carlton North, VIC – Melbourne’s “Coffee King” Heads North
Hehe Melbs has basically pedestalised the tapa concept? I went once in Spain, they just threw the peanut shells and sometimes the bones on the floor of the bar! So casual!
Ahh you can never have too many spanish tapas; the food here looks really good, love all the char grill action going on! Lovely photos :)
Ming @ sweetandsourfork recently posted..Oli and Levi
Thank you :)
Cream pot of dulce de leche?! Oh. My. God. I need that!
Beautiful photos as always, the atmosphere of the place seems so warm and cosy! :)
Ashley recently posted..Taste of Tennis 2013
Thank you. :)
Yes I was so surprised by that cream pot, so gentle milky smoky mmmmmm…!
I know what you’re saying about octopus – it’s so hard to cook, and so often comes out rubbery. Looks like this was nice, though!
Your photos have totally transported me into this beautiful, warm, cozy and super Italian-feeling space. Your sense of place is palpable! Now, I just need to take my man there, who loves, loves his Italian food :)
Yasmeen @ Wandering Spice recently posted..Welcome back, Wandering Spice
Thank you. I was a bit shy to snap pics there actually, it was such a cosy tight space that i did not want to get into people’s way. Glad the pics turned out alright in the end. :)