hipster style meets food with flair - ACME nails it

Sweet crab meat punctured with bursts of fresh corn and alfabeto pasta in a buttery, ramen-style soup. This may be the best soup I have every slurped.  It's a stand-out dish on a night of many stand-out dishes in Acme's highly successful Italian-Asian play.

This is a kitchen having a whole lot of fun. The team of four work calmly in the open plan kitchen, smiling at each other as they lean across and share the prep.  It's reflected in the menu with its simple descriptions.

Jatz and salmon - tangy with citrus

Sweet, warm brioche with baloney and a tomato-based sauce provided a comforting reminder of school lunches (but a step up on devon and tomato sauce!)

Beetroot, with ground coffee and macadamia nut butter - earthy accents

asparagus with green tea butter - surprisingly successful

beef tartare, kohlrabi, avocado

Two more sensational dishes. pungently rich black garlic and burnt chilli linguine and chinese-style chilli cucumber

Burrata, apple and bottarga

maltagliati, rabbit, pistachio

quite the twist on carbonara - pig head, yolk, macaroni.  unctuously good

braised octopus is deep fried just before serving - crunchy on the outside and oh so tender - served with fennel and wakame

Interesting food cooked very well, with great floor staff and a very reasonable wine list. Almost every dish caused us to pause and praise. It's lovely to see great ingredients cooked with such skill and style; this isn't a restaurant that takes itself too seriously though!

Definitely worth a visit to Rushcutters' Bay. We ate and drank our fill (and that's saying something) for $130 a head.

http://weareacme.com.au

Hollywood Stars

Osteria Mozza, West Hollywood: I knew i was done for at the starter of shaved brussell sprouts.  Shredded with exclamation marks of mint, roasted almonds, pecorino and reggiano, the sprouts' nuttiness comes to the fore.

top - shredded sprout salad and bottom - mozzarella

Just set homemade mozzarella, sprinkled with salty spikes of burrata and bursts of caviar. There's an entire page of mozzarella treatments, each exciting and enticing.

The Squid Ink Chitarra Freddi is a mountain of drama.  Al dente pasta capped with Dungeness crab, and sea urchin, dressed with just a hint of cream and then right at the back of the palette the heat of jalapeño.

simply devine - squid ink pasta

My pork fillet comes seared in cumin and fennel, cooked just the right side of pink, nestling into braised radicchio.

Heaped sides of spinach, shell beans of potatoes well and truly pull us up but the temptation to keep picking continues until the plates are cleared - everything sings together, and it's a happy, bang your belly kind of song.

And just as we're indulging in another glass of 2006 Poggio di Sotto, who should appear but Gwyneth Paltrow (complete with man to display PDA for the gathering paps outside the window).  She drapes herself at the adjoining table.  Just us, her and her PDA recipient, and the paps busily snapping away through the strategically draped window with the blinds arranged to allow just a peek of the dark, wooden interiors of Osteria Mozza.

And like moths to the flame, the stars continued to emerge.  J-LO, Kristen Stewart, Lea Michelle.

The Hollywood red carpet was out just for us, bringing just the right note of drama to close a perfect meal. Then, to add to the magic, our Uber Black back to the hotel was a Tesla :)

http://www.osteriamozza.com/LA/team.cfm

real life papps

Tesla turbo charged departure