La Baia Bar Cucina is an Italian restaurant facing Port Melbourne beach and every Friday they have a live jazz duo playing - you can imagine how lovely this is on a warm balmy night. The atmosphere is a bit romantic so put it on the date night list. The food, the staff, the venue, the jazz – we were happy with it all.
Playing jazz all night long.
We started with a couple of stone oven focaccias. Which are basically like small sized pizzas. The bruschetta was delicious with fresh tomatoes, onion, basil and shaved parmesan. I loved that it was a pizza-style bruschetta, different to the standard bruschetta on toasts. The dough was thin, crisp and had a nice flavour.
The olive and taleggio focaccia was amazing too. Especially because I love those two ingredients. The salty black olives and mild soft melted cheese over the thin stone baked dough was wonderful.
For mains we had the gnocchi alla norma which was bubbling away in the serving plate. The gnocchi was light and pillowy in a roma tomato sugo sauce with eggplant and salted ricotta.
The linguine allo scoglio was a show stopper with a whole grilled yabbie sitting on top. The seafood was abundant with mussels, clams, calamari, prawns and scallops cooked in a white wine sauce with onion, garlic, herbs and a nice kick of chilli.
For dessert we went with the chocolate soufflé, you need to allow 15 minutes because they are baked to order. It was like eating light, fluffy, sweet, chocolate clouds. It came with vanilla ice-cream covered in chopped hazelnuts which was nice.
We ended with a shot of ‘Mirto’ which is an Italian liquor from Sardinia and we were told it’s hard to find in Australia. It’s smooth, sweet and to be sipped slowly. The perfect drink to accompany our dessert.
I heart La Baia Cucina!
Olives x
La Baia Cucina
Address: 16/123 Beaconsfield Parade, Albert Park VIC 3206
Website: http://www.labaiabarcucina.com
Phone: (03) 9042 2251
Trading Hours: Tue-Thu: 5pm-10pm, Fri-Sat: 12pm-11am, Sun: 12pm-10pm, Mon: closed
