Corvina Restaurant Canberra - Review

Some of you may know that our niece has moved to Canberra recently, but I may not have mentioned before that our nephew also resides there.  So on our recent trip, it was wonderful to catch up with him on a couple of nights too.  We are all pretty keen on our tucker in this family, so we headed out to dinner at a local Italian restaurant on the Saturday night.  I say local but it felt like the depths of the 'burbs, which I think it was. 


The nephew led us to Corvina, an Italian restaurant which serves a lot of the usual suspects: Italian style salads, pasta, risottos, and main meals with an Italian hue.  They also make pizza, which doesn't show on the main restaurant menu so perhaps it is only takeaway?  We started with bread and olive oil and balsamic for dipping.  They even threw on a little sachet of butter if you were so inclined.

$6 for 6 slices  

The bread was okay, without a huge amount of flavour or texture to it. I had hoped for something zingy and chewy like a pane di casa or sour dough.  Sadly it did not have a dense crumb, and as you can see, it was a bit holey.  Nevertheless, it was good value.

olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping   

arancini $15    

Hubby and I shared some arancini as we had had a big lunch already.  These were filled with veal ragu and had a blanket of napoletana sauce. They were pleasant and filling, if somewhat bland.  We both would have liked a bit more flavour and spice in them.  But they were house made which always adds a few extra points in my estimation.  

frutti di mare $25   

The BIL and I both indulged in the seafood linguine.  The pasta had a decent quantity of mussels, calamari, prawns and vongole atop it. The lemon and white wine sauce was a nice change from the (too) tomato-ey sauce you often get in Italian restaurants. But I would happily have had the garlic and chilli upped to a spicy level on this dish.   And perhaps a wee bit of cream would have melded the dish together.  I think you get my drift here; the food was well-presented and tasty but I kept wishing for more robust flavours.

veal involtini $29.50  

The veal which was filled with ham, bocconcini and pesto came with mashed potato, seasonal vegetables and a creamy mushroom sauce.  The niece enjoyed this dish; she said she had been looking forward to an Italian meal for weeks so she wolfed this down with no complaints.  (Better than Mess food).  The veal was tender and went well with the creamy sauce.

Pollo Al Cognac $28.50  

The nephew loved his main of chicken in cognac.  This was similar to the veal dish with the same veggies, mushrooms, and mash. He loved the tender chicken and the flavoursome sauce.  His plate nearly got licked clean. :=)   


Hubby is a huge fan of pasta and he chose gnocchi pesto with chicken.  This was a winner with him.  He adores gnocchi, and being house made gave it extra kudos.  His only tiny quibble was that the gnocchi could have been just a little fluffier.  He said it was a teensy bit hard for him.  Other than that, he said there was enough sauce and the chicken was well-cooked.  

gnocchi pesto w/- chicken $23.50   

     

The SIL had spaghetti cacciatore from the specials' list.  The sauce had shredded chicken, olives, and tomato as you would expect.  I believe this spaghetti was house made too.  SIL was sad that she couldn't quite finish off this substantial dish even though she was enjoying its tomato-enhanced sauce.

spaghetti cacciatore $24    

The restaurant is licensed; the service friendly and prompt; the food well-presented and tasty. It was a little bit strange for us as it was still full daylight when we got there.  Coming from Queensland we are not used to long twilights.  Once the sun had gone down, the ambience was just that bit more enticing.  All in all, you certainly get value for money here and will have yourselves a very pleasant evening.  Our bottle of wine was $20 which is a bargain in anyone's estimation.  Canberra is lucky to have such a family friendly and welcoming restaurant in its suburbs.